Burma: Human Rights

Baroness Cox: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What representations they are making about continuing human rights violations in Burma.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we remain deeply concerned about the human rights violations in Burma, and we take every opportunity to raise the issue directly with the regime. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary raised Burma with the Thai Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on 13 October. Our ambassador in Rangoon and other EU ambassadors expressed our concerns about the grave human rights situation to the Burmese Foreign Minister on 22 August. Most recently our ambassador in Rangoon met the Burmese Foreign Minister on 26 October and repeated these concerns. We will continue to press this regime.

Baroness Cox: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. Is he aware of the report commissioned by Vaclav Havel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu entitled Threat to the Peace, which calls for the situation in Burma to be discussed by the UN Security Council? Will Her Majesty's Government publicly support the United States and other nations in supporting this important initiative? I returned from the region yesterday, and can confirm from first-hand evidence that the suffering of the people of Burma caused by human rights violations by the SPDC is as grave as ever, and certainly as grave as that outlined in the compelling report.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am aware of the report and have studied it. We fully support the initiative of the United States and any action of the UN Security Council that would help to promote reform and positive change in Burma. We agree that the UN has a vital role to play in Burma and strongly support the Secretary-General's efforts to promote national reconciliation, as well as the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Professor Sergio Pinheiro, and the UN Secretary-General's special envoy to Burma, Tan Sri Razali. We urge the State Peace and Development Council to work closely with the UN and its agencies in the interests of a lasting peace and inclusive democratic reform in Burma.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, the SPDC has persistently ignored the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Secretary-General, his special envoy, the Human Rights Commission and its Special Rapporteur, and the International Labour Organisation. Given that, is it not time to recognise that flouting the will of the international community and creating a human rights black hole, from which 750,000 people have fled abroad, constitutes a threat to peace and security within the meaning of Chapter 7 of the Charter, and that therefore we should refer the matter to the Security Council so that it may be discussed there?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I understand the sentiment that lies behind that question, and, were it possible to secure that kind of majority in the Security Council, that might be a way of proceeding. I have to be honest with the House, though: I do not think at the moment the majority is there in the Security Council for that approach, and there would certainly be strong resistance from some of Burma's immediate trading partners on its own borders.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, things can be done. When the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, was last in Burma—before this time—she found that the Chin and a number of the other ethnic minority tribes were receiving no help whatever from the international aid organisations across the border. It is surely within our power to do something about that. We owe a particular debt to the Chin, because I remember General Slim, in Defeat Into Victory, saying that they were some of the most outstanding, loyal, courageous and intrepid fighters in the war against the Japanese. We owe them, as a country, a special debt.
	I also entirely support what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said, but I know too well how impossible it is, apparently, to cause the United Nations to live up to its principles.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I share the sentiment of the noble Baroness on the historic obligations that are owed to the peoples of the region by the peoples of the United Kingdom. The UK, through DfID, provides humanitarian assistance to help refugees and internally displaced people through the funding of the Thai-Burma border consortium, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Health Organisation. We also provide support through NGO projects in ethnic minority areas and through the contribution to the European Commission's funding for repatriation and reintegration of refugees. We have tried to find routes into all those areas on the disputed borders and to support the peoples whom the noble Baroness rightly draws to our attention.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, while the situation in Burma is better than it was in the past under the communists, it is still totally unacceptable. Despite the Burmese Government's ratification of Order 1/99 in 2000, which bans forced labour, sources inside and outside Burma continue to provide extensive reports of government-organised forced labour. These are primarily linked to military operations. What steps will Her Majesty's Government take to put pressure on the Burmese authorities to abide by the order?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I agree that the Burmese Government have still to address in any effective way the international community's concerns on the use of forced labour in Burma. We support the efforts of the International Labour Organisation to end permanently the use of forced labour. As regards Burma's general system of preferences—the trade privileges—which were suspended in the EC in 1997 in response to our concerns, that is a sanction which we shall continue to employ. We shall encourage others way beyond the boundaries of the European Community to employ the same sanction. The European Community has called for it and has repeatedly condemned Burma's lack of progress on forced labour. We will work with the international organisations to try to extend the pressure that we can bring to bear.

Lord Elton: My Lords, what steps, apart from those the noble Lord enumerated in his substantive Answer, have the Government taken, or are they taking, to secure a majority in the Security Council before they go to it with this issue? We quite understand that being defeated in the Security Council on an issue such as this would be very harmful as regards what we are trying to achieve, but what are we trying to do to ensure that we get a majority before we go there?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I believe it is well known in the House that across a number of issues involving intolerable regimes, different countries have taken the lead role to try to get a sensible division of labour. In this case the United States has taken the lead role, for which I am grateful. We are working to support that and have made it clear that we will do so.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, does the Minister's department have information on large exports of high-quality timber from northern Burma to China? Does it take a view on the probable consequences for flooding of such cutting?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we believe that there is extensive trade in teak with China. I am told that numerous lorries travel the roads between the two countries. There is a grave risk to the environment as a result of that. There is also rather more of a boost to the Burmese economy than one would have wished. It would be very good if Burma's near neighbours could be persuaded to bring pressure to bear on this abhorrent regime.

Disabled Facilities Grant

Baroness Wilkins: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress they have made on the review of the disabled facilities grant.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, as part of this review a report by Bristol University has been prepared with wide-ranging recommendations for change. In particular, the report recommends that the DFG means test should be removed for families with a disabled child and the Government have agreed to implement this change in England from December this year.
	Written statements about progress with the DFG review are being laid today in both Houses and the Bristol report will be published tomorrow.

Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, I am delighted to thank my noble friend the Minister for that very welcome reply and for her concern, tenacity and supreme skill in having brought about this step. It will bring enormous relief to thousands of families who cannot afford to adapt their homes and will enable their children to fulfil their potential.
	Does the Minister agree with me that a warm tribute is due to Brendan McKeever and Ginni Shaw of Homes Fit for Children and Caroline Gordon of Mencap, among many others, for their long campaign on this issue? Does she also agree that, while the abolition of the means test is extremely welcome, it will meet only the tip of the iceberg of need and that a great amount of work still needs to be done to adapt our housing stock to meet the needs of disabled people?

Baroness Andrews: Yes, my Lords, I am delighted to pay tribute not only to the campaign groups which have worked incredibly tenaciously to bring this about, but to the campaign that has been waged in this House, not least by my noble friend. She is absolutely right that it is an excellent start. We did what we could do to meet the most pressing need. The rest of the report makes wide-ranging recommendations, which we will be looking at in the context of what else we can do for people with disabilities who cannot afford to access what they need. Early in the new year, we will bring forward a consultation paper that addresses those issues and how we intend to proceed.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the announcement that the Minister has made is obviously extremely welcome, especially for those families with disabled children who need to adapt their houses and flats to give them a better quality of life. On the further review, the Minister's colleague Yvette Cooper, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, said in a Written Answer on 14 March that the review would report to Ministers in May and that would be followed by a consultation, which normally in this day and age seems to take about six weeks. It is now almost November, but as I understand it we are only about to have the consultation on the report. Why is that?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the Bristol report undertook major research that looked at a large number of people in complex situations. We received the report in August. We are looking across government in a cross-departmental review. There are a wide range of issues, as the noble Lord will understand, not least involving the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills. We have a comprehensive report that will allow us to establish priorities and will allow us to move forward swiftly, knowing full well the implications of what we prioritise.

Lord Addington: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on announcing that positive news. Does she agree that the devil may well be in the detail? Can the Government give us some information about what work is being done to deal with the backlog of cases? What studies have been done to establish the necessary level of training for the staff who will be implementing the scheme? We need to ensure that the backlog will be reduced over time and will not occur again in the future.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, that is a reasonable question. The delays in the system have exercised us very much, and they continue to do so because they are unacceptable. The Bristol report calls for a separate fast track system for some items with less bureaucracy, and we will be looking at that. We will also be looking at what we can do in the interim to spread good practice, because some local authorities are much better than others. We have produced tripartite guidance, which we need to know is being implemented. We are putting more money into the system, which will also speed things up. We have removed the means test, which means that local authorities can concentrate on other cases and they will not be involved in complex assessments in the way that they have been. The number of occupational therapists, which has been an issue, is getting better and there has been a drop in the number of vacancies. Things are looking more positive.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her statement this morning. I am sure that the consultation will be wide. Can she assure me that those NGOs that work particularly for children such as Save the Children—of which I was a one-time council member—and the Children's Society will be included in any consultation that takes place?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I can give that assurance. The bodies that work in this field have an enormous range of expertise about individual families and the complexities and difficulties that they face, and we need to know about that. It gives me pleasure this morning to know that we have the prospect of about 500 additional severely disabled children per year being helped through the system in ways that they could not have been helped before because their families had incomes that were too high.

The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: My Lords, the Minister's announcement this morning is very welcome, but does she accept that children and young people with disabilities show remarkable courage, often in the face of very difficult circumstances? Does that not lay upon all of us a high moral responsibility to ensure that the best resources are made available to such children and young people and to their families? Is that not the moral undergirding that really lies behind these moves?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. Essentially, the point of the disabled facilities grant is to make the home accessible to the child. That is a fundamental human right. Many such children have had to be carried upstairs to a bathroom, sometimes on the back of a frail mother. So we are making a very simple provision accessible on a very human basis.

Draft Civil Service Bill

Lord Sheldon: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How many responses have been received following the consultation on the draft Civil Service Bill.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the Government have received more than 50 responses to the consultation exercise on proposals for a draft Civil Service Bill.

Lord Sheldon: My Lords, I see that there are no more responses, so will my noble friend publish the Government's replies to those 50, which we knew about many months ago? Is he aware that very many people view with dismay the decline in the standing of the Civil Service, the dominant role of some special advisers, and the way in which the integrity and independence of the Civil Service has been put at risk? The introduction of a Bill would enable Parliament to consider all those matters. What does the Minister say to that?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as I have said on many occasions from the Dispatch Box, we value the independence, integrity, honesty and directness of civil servants and the quality of their advice. We are carefully considering the responses that have been received and we shall make our views known in due course.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, will the Minister go further? His answer sounded extraordinarily complacent, first, in the light of the criticisms made by Sir Alistair Graham, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, in which he accused the Government of being in breach of the seven principles of public life because of their reliance on mere orders to effect change—in particular, the principle of openness and transparency—and, secondly, in the light of the powerful argument advanced by the Civil Service Commissioners, who wrote as long as a year ago that the constitutional position of the Civil Service and the core values which underpin the Civil Service are not suitable to be supported solely by Orders in Council and need to be embodied in a Bill. If the Government are unable to produce a Bill themselves, can they bring what they have before us and we can then see what we can do to improve it?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I shall try to answer the noble Lord's points briefly. We simply do not accept what the noble Lord says. I have made plain on many occasions that we believe the current constitutional position to be well understood and well settled. It has been that way since Northcote and Trevelyan, and I think that the Civil Service works well in the current circumstances.

Lord Marsh: My Lords, does Minister not agree that this is a fundamental issue in terms of the constitution and the way that this country is run, and that it is a matter of some urgency? Can he give us a rough indication of what "in due course" might mean?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord is far more experienced in these matters than me, and I am sure that, as a former Minister, he understands exactly what "in due course" means. I am not in a position to provide a timetable and it would be wrong of me to do so, but the Government take these important issues extremely seriously. For that reason, even without a Bill being actively in play, the Government have been extremely keen to see that arrangements are strengthened, with proper rules, codes of practice and contracts put in place, to ensure that the relationship between government and the Civil Service is properly regulated. We remain committed to that.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, it is something of a relief to know from the noble Lord that the Government take these issues seriously. Are he and his masters aware of the growing concern felt at the widespread infiltration of the Civil Service as a result of the proliferation of specialist advisers? The Civil Service is coming very near to being reduced to a satellite of the Labour Party.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I do not like having to disagree with the noble Lord, but that is a nonsensical analysis. There are 3,900 senior civil servants in central government departments. My recollection is that there are now 82, perhaps 84, special advisers. We must have a sense of proportion on this issue. To suggest that there is some sort of political infiltration, I am afraid, is nonsense.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, why have the Government not given effect to the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to appoint an independent arbiter of the ministerial code, as recently put forward again by Sir Alistair Graham?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I ought to express the Government's gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, at this point. As the principal Civil Service Commissioner, she chairs a working group that, as I understand it, does exactly that. It considers the purpose and effectiveness of the code and monitors the way in which it performs. The noble Baroness is doing a sterling job, and your Lordships' House would do well to support and encourage her in that activity.

Baroness Prashar: My Lords, this is not a question. I am chairing a working party dealing with the Civil Service code, but not the ministerial code.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her correction.

Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, are not the Government becoming increasingly arrogant in their declining years? They brush aside the opinion of their most senior civil servant and the needs of the best Civil Service in the world. It is time that the Government addressed the idea of bringing this Bill forward. The new Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell, has recently said that he believes that the Civil Service Bill must be passed to protect the honesty and integrity of the Civil Service. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that Sir Gus's fears that politics will get in the way of this important piece of legislation will not come to pass?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am pleased to hear that the noble Baroness is enthusiastic for this legislation. Her government decided in 1995 not to proceed with such legislation, and the Conservatives took the view at the last general election that it was not sufficiently important to include in their manifesto.

Medical Students: Fees

Baroness Neuberger: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What plans they have to assist graduate students in medical schools who have difficulty in paying their fees which, unlike those of undergraduates, cannot be deferred until they enter employment.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the Government provide considerable support for graduate medical students. We have, in particular, introduced the new accelerated fouryear graduate course on which students have to pay fees for only one of the four years, with the entire balance paid by the Government. We will continue to pay for three of the four years in full when fees rise, as well as providing bursaries and subsidised maintenance loans for living costs.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Is he aware that the medical students committee of the BMA and the Council of Heads of Medical Schools are very worried about the draft student support regulations, which are due to come out in 2006? They think that the regulations will not currently cover all the students who are graduates of some other programme, but now entering medical school. Some of them are not doing a four-year course, but a five or even six-year course because of EU regulations. Many of them are really worried. Warwick, in particular, already has six students in serious debt of over £40,000.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, we are aware of those representations and believe them to be unfounded. If one looks at the record over the past six years, there has been a huge increase in the number of graduate medical students, half of whom are now accounted for by the four-year course. We will continue to provide the subsidies at the current level for those years where we pay the fees. We are also increasing the maintenance support available to such students, including those on the five and six-year courses, from next year. In real terms, the maintenance support available to them as subsidised loans will rise by 19 per cent in London in real terms, and 5 per cent out of London. We therefore believe that the support the Government are providing is substantial and the record on the increasing numbers of graduate medical students speaks for itself.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, are the Government satisfied that the number of medical students, increased though it may have been, is adequate to meet the health needs of this country?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, six years ago there was an intake of 554 graduate medical students. Last year, that had risen to 1,364, an increase of 150 per cent. That is an impressive rate of increase and we believe that it will continue.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, notwithstanding the welcome support the Minister has outlined, is he not concerned that the liability for fees will have a detrimental effect on the number of women who are thinking of taking medicine as a second degree? They may well worry about having to shoulder such a huge burden of debt, some of it from their first degree, while they are looking after children and working only part time.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the additional debt that students will take on for the accelerated course will be in respect of the fees for only one of the years. It will be more if they are on the five- or six-year course, but half of all graduate students are on the accelerated course. We expect to see that proportion rise. Although we could always do more, and if additional resources were available we would seek to do so, none the less the deal offered to graduate medical students, both men and women, is significantly better. That is why we have seen the big increase in numbers.

Lord Renton: My Lords, although the figure the Minister has given indicating an increase in the number of doctors is impressive, we need more doctors than ever. Will he therefore ensure that there is no technical way in which they can be prevented from qualifying?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, in 1997–98, the intake to medical schools was 3,749 and last year it was 6,326. There has therefore been a massive increase in the intake to medical schools, thanks to the investment we have been able to make. We regard the continuation of such numbers as very important. If the noble Lord wishes to draw to my attention particular issues connected with the capacity of people to train, I will of course take them up.

Liaison: Select Committee Report

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Most elements of the report are self-explanatory, but it might be helpful if I were to say a word about the proposal regarding the Select Committee on the review of the BBC Charter. This committee was first established on 2 March this year with the intention that it should report in time to inform the Government's White Paper. I understand that the committee has now agreed its report, which will be published next week.
	In order to meet this timetable, however, the committee has not been able to give proper attention to a number of issues, such as religious broadcasting, broadcasting in the nations and regions, the World Service and the broadcasting of sport. These issues remain pertinent: the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, for example, asked a Starred Question about televising cricket only a week or two ago.
	The Liaison Committee therefore agreed to recommend that the BBC Charter committee should be allowed to report "from time to time" to enable it to make a further report on these matters. The Liaison Committee was, however, sensitive to concerns that the BBC Charter committee should not continue indefinitely. It therefore made its recommendation as stated in the report on the understanding that the BBC Charter committee should publish its final report by the end of February 2006. I commend the Motion to the House.

Moved, That the First Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
	On Question, Motion agreed to.

Civil Partnership (Miscellaneous and Consequential Provisions) Order 2005

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 12 October be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Social Security (Inherited SERPS) (Amendments relating to Civil Partnership) Regulations 2005

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 12 October be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I hope that what I shall say about timing will be helpful to the House. We could have agreed to put down on the Order Paper a Motion setting a specific time limit, but provided noble Lords keep within the rules of the Companion—as we all do at all times—there should be plenty of time. But it has been suggested to me that it would still be helpful if I gave an indication about how long noble Lords might speak in order to complete the debate in around five hours. The arithmetic is as follows—and I need to be specific about this as I have been in trouble in the past for not being clear enough. If the opener takes a maximum of 20 minutes and the four winders take a maximum of 20 minutes—it is not compulsory that they should take a maximum—there would be plenty of time for us to finish in around five hours if other contributors take 11 minutes. Is that helpful? I hope so because I do not have anything better to offer .

Energy Supply

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, in rising to introduce the debate, I must say how truly delighted I am that so many of your Lordships have decided to take part. A Thursday morning debate is not all that appealing, as we are witnessing, but it is a measure of the deep concern about future energy supplies that has been expressed on all sides of the House over a very long period that so many heavyweights have put their names down to speak. Indeed, noble Lords will be aware that I use the word "heavyweights" in an intellectual sense, and I am not referring to obesity.
	I also wish to say how much I am personally looking forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Goodlad, as I am certain all noble Lords are. My noble friend and I go back a long way. Together with other Members of both Houses and business colleagues we were marooned for a weekend in a pre-glasnost, pre-perestroika fairly unfriendly country. As I recall, we were there to improve relations. It was not the most successful mission of all time, but I do not think that it did much harm: four of us are now Members of this House—my noble friend, myself, the noble Lord, Lord Radice, who is not with us today, and my noble friend Lady Hogg. My noble friend Lord Goodlad has had a stellar career since then, and I know that we shall all benefit from his contribution.
	I am delighted to have the opportunity of opening, and introducing, the debate. For too long this House has skirted around the issue of the long-term security of energy supplies. The saga has had one beneficial effect, in that many Members have become experts on the subject, and yet again today I hope they will express their concerns by giving us all, government Ministers included, the benefit of their wisdom and understanding. I described the situation as a "saga"—not a bad description. We have had so many debates. Question after question has been directed to the Government. Members on all sides have expressed their well-researched concerns on every possible angle of energy policy, or lack of such policy. With depressing regularity we have been fobbed off time and time again with complacent replies to our questions.
	How many times have we been told—and, indeed, we were told again this week—that the energy White Paper in 2003 was a good thing and set out the framework for a long-term energy policy? We were told again this week that the Prime Minister is going to come up with some proposals next year—that is, proposals three years after the energy White Paper was published, and then only proposals. That is all right then. All I can say is that there is not much sense of urgency.
	Members on all sides of your Lordships' House are very concerned about this issue. I suggest that our concern is wholly warranted and that the Government's complacency is not. That is why I worded the Motion in such a way as to concentrate on the imperative for early policy decisions to secure long-term energy supply, not just proposals some time next year, but policy decisions now.
	I am sure that there is a very good collective noun for ostriches. If I knew it, I would apply it to the Government. That is not really a frivolous remark. We are facing a serious long-term situation, but it takes more than three years to respond to a strategy and consider making proposals, not even policy. Nero and violins spring to mind.
	In this debate, we must attempt to get some indication of a sense of urgency from the Government. If there is no such sense of urgency, we must attempt to convince the Government that there should be. I really want to be helpful to the Government—yes, I really do. I see myself as an unfulfilled optimist living in hope. My hope today is that by having this debate, we may hasten the formulation of sensible, forward-looking policy decisions to safeguard the security of supply of energy for our country.
	As I intimated before, one of the great strengths of this House is that we are fortunate in having colleagues with a wealth of experience and expertise in this field. I am sure that, by bringing some of them together in this debate, we can send a strong and forceful message to the Government that they cannot ignore the whole subject any longer and that we cannot be fobbed off any longer. We have the expertise partially because we have the relative luxury of time to research, time to think and time to go to energy seminars. We also benefit from the brilliant raft of Select Committees, which can and do choose subjects to investigate, often involved in thinking the unthinkable. They set their own agendas, they invite national and international experts and produce great reports. Select Committee reports frequently dwell on the longer term but—sadly, in my view—those reports are too often consigned to languish in the "all-too-difficult basket".
	The work of this House is in marked contrast to that of the other place, where Members have to pay day-to-day attention to the wants and needs of their constituents. Their imperative is always to react to, "Events, dear boy, events". Understandably, they are often thrown off course by the unpredictable nature of so many issues that hit them: wars, terrorism and acts of God, to name but three. Bearing all that in mind, I go as far as to say that we in this House have the duty to concentrate on the longer term when we know that our country is facing the most serious situation of security of energy supply.
	As several colleagues have mentioned to me today, the timing of our debate coincided with a significant amount of media attention on radio and television this morning on the most serious situation of security of energy supply. I do not think that they actually paid much attention to the debate that we were about to have, but it would be nice to think that they might be listening to this and that at some time we might get some publicity for the serious issues that we discuss in this House.
	There are a few stark facts that we must keep in mind when considering the need for an early policy decision to secure long-term energy supply. Domestic demand for electricity increases inexorably every year. Since 1990, demand has increased by 20 per cent. On the other hand, supply of domestic fuel sources for electricity generation is declining. This year, we become a net importer of gas; and gas and renewables are the Government's chosen fuel sources for electricity generation. By 2015, existing coal-fired and nuclear power stations, which currently supply more than 50 per cent of our electricity demand, will either be taken out of commission or be well along the way to being so. The resultant deficit in our energy supply will almost certainly be filled by natural gas supplied from the Middle East and Russia. Those are not exactly areas that produce a comfort-zone feeling.
	Of course, we are all aware of the great drive towards renewables—wind turbines, onshore and offshore; photovoltaics; and wave power, to mention but a few.
	Again, I fear, I do not get much of a comfort-zone feeling from that list.
	In answer to a Written Question by my noble friend Lord Vinson on 21 June this year, the Minister stated that the most recent statistics of annual operational efficiency of onshore wind turbines was only 24.1 per cent. Yes, renewables are likely to be a very important component in the future energy supply mix but there is no quick fix from them—at least not from the current categorisation of renewables as defined by the Government, who staunchly deny that nuclear is a renewable resource. I shall return to that in a minute.
	Added to the basic problem of increasing demand and reducing supply is the most important issue of targets for carbon-emission reduction, which are essential if we are to play our part in combating the effects of climate change. As an aside, I am sure that noble Lords are all aware that the distinguished and noble Lord, Lord May, will introduce a debate on 10 November to call attention to climate change. In part, I regret that his debate did not come before this one. Both are of huge importance and both subjects are inextricably linked—I know that all contributors to this debate are mindful of that.
	The doomsters are already foretelling that the lights will go out. Like many noble Lords, I have read that if the weather forecasters are correct this year we shall have electricity cuts, lights out and the return of the three-day week this winter. However, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham—I am sorry that he is not in his place—was very reassuring this week when he said, "No, we do not have only three days' gas supply reserves; we have 11". How does all that look when we recall that the energy White Paper was published in 2003 and the Prime Minister will publish proposals, not policies, next year?
	Noble Lords would be surprised if I did not mention nuclear power. I do not like being repetitive. We all pride ourselves on being able to get the message across succinctly and not having to drone on, flogging a dead horse. Sadly, flogging a dead horse seems the only course open to me. I used to think that I was reasonably persuasive, but on the subject of nuclear power I have long been disabused of that thought. I could find out how many times I have raised the subject in your Lordships' House, but I do not think I will go to the trouble, because it would be just too depressing.
	To say that I despair of the Government ever taking nuclear power seriously is an understatement. I am afraid that I can come to only one conclusion: why should they go through the difficult exercise of formulating a policy to build new nuclear power stations when the results of such policy decisions will not come on stream for many years after this Government have disappeared? Is that responsible? Does it show anything but a cynical disregard for the long-term future of our country and our economy? Not only that, but the Government steadfastly try to hide the fact that nuclear power is a carbon-emission-free source of electricity generation—in effect, a renewable. Will the Minister come clean on this today and reclassify nuclear as renewable? If he does, he has the opportunity, which seldom comes the way of Ministers, to be congratulated by the whole House. How can he resist that?
	The outlook is not good, but it could be improved. The combination of global warming, resulting in catastrophic climate change, and the reliance on somewhat politically unstable countries for sourcing fuel for our future electricity supplies is not a prospect to be greeted with an expression of unalloyed joy. One thing is certain: the longer we delay producing policy decisions to combat the dubious nature of our future energy supplies and to respond to the imperative to cut carbon emissions even more drastically, the more precarious is our future. Our future standard of living and the comfort of our living conditions are at risk. Even more important, the future of our wealth-producing industry is at risk. The current decline in our productivity compared with that of other nations will continue, and our international competitiveness, which is also declining, will decline even further and even more sharply.
	I am sure that all contributors to the debate will give us much to think about; I fear that they will also give us quite a lot to worry about. I am sure that there will be some seriously good policy suggestions. I look forward to all the speeches and thank the speakers in advance. I just hope that the Government will listen, understand and act—sooner rather than later. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing the debate. It has given me an opportunity to make my maiden speech on a subject that I have spent a number of years having to consider, on the basis that I was a Member of Parliament for Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire in central Scotland. The central Scottish coalfield was literally under my patch. We were always preoccupied with the question of how we would continue to get the coal and put it into the famous Longannet power station. As a consequence, I have taken an interest in the subject.
	For 10 years, I was fortunate enough to be chair of a Select Committee in the other House. We considered long-term issues such as security of supply. Despite our perspicacity and our willingness to consider the longer term, governments—governments of both complexions—were never that clear about the longer-term consequences. In the 1990s, the Conservative administrations did not think much beyond the attractiveness of gas and the continuing likelihood that there would be sufficient supplies in the North Sea, certainly well into the teens if not the twenties of this century. That almost complacent approach was carried on by the Labour Administration after 1997.
	We pointed out to the Government that we were going to become net importers of gas and oil in the early part of the century, and the Select Committee produced a report in 2002 drawing attention to the vexed question of the absence of appropriate storage facilities. The Government—perhaps because they are new Labour and perhaps because they have embraced the market with the enthusiasm of a recent convert—were blind to the fact that the market does not always respond when opportunities are available. There might well be other opportunities for those international operations to look elsewhere to make more money rather than go to the trouble of finding storage facilities that are not necessarily very popular, as recent planning applications indicate. Equally, in the North Sea, there will be competition for storage in the future. We may have to find a location for the carbon that could be sequestrated if we are to have another development in coal power. I would not rule that out altogether, but, at the moment, the technology is not mature enough for us to mortgage our energy future on it.
	It could be said that there is a proliferation of options, none of which is available to us at present. That does not in any way deter some of the enthusiasts for advancing those options, such as biomass, the consequence of limited resources. I know from experience in Scotland that the Scottish timber harvest is being distorted because of the location in Lockerbie of a potential timber-burning power station. It will attract renewable funding, it will be subsidised, and it will distort the price of timber for other activities, such as timber processing, which will become increasingly dependent on the construction industry, in which planking and the like is now made from, as it were, baked timber, rather than the old wood or other forms. My point is that the unintended consequences law is being brought into play in a number of aspects of renewables. I am not against wind power. I know a number of farming businesses that would benefit from having wind farms on their land, which would keep many of them sustainable. That is an argument that some tree huggers and others forget. We cannot be dependent on renewables as a substitute for a sizeable part of our base-load generating capacity.
	We could take up to about another 50 per cent gas generation—maybe 10 per cent more than we have at the moment. That still leaves the gap that will be left with the closure of many coal-fired power stations, but I would caution against closing them all. There is a case for coal, which is not just about carbon sequestration. If that does not work in the way that people like, we have to ensure that we are prepared to allow a certain amount of CO2 to be expelled into the air by the generation of electricity from coal for the simple reason that coal is so flexible. As a power source it can be switched on remarkably quickly—not quite as attractively or as quickly as hydro power, but, unfortunately, we do not have enough of that kind of water in the UK. It would be foolhardy to throw out the coal baby with the bath water, so to speak.
	That brings us to the option of nuclear. I am not critical of the Government for not making up their mind on the nuclear issue so far. I say that because, frankly, we still have a sufficiency of generating capability in the UK. The storage issue will, within about two years, by and large be addressed. The manipulation of statistics to suggest that this will be the year, since we have not had a cold winter for 42 years, is doing the professional statistician something of a disservice. It is clear that we have to recognise that we might have difficulties this year, but it would be wrong to go down the alarmist road which the director-general of the CBI is taking us. Digby Jones is known for his enthusiasm. I think that on this occasion he has been carried away by understandable fears, but which can be unnecessarily exaggerated.
	We have to recognise that we have seen not just the decline in the British security of supply that we have enjoyed because of the North Sea. We recognise that there are other parts of the North Sea—indeed, parts which have been worked already—which could be exploited. There are more difficult, less easy-to-process reserves of oil in the North Sea that could be brought out and used in the transport part of the energy equation.
	We must recognise that the dramatic increase in the impact on the world market of the Indian and Chinese veracious appetite for energy has meant that prices are being affected and supply chains distorted in ways that we had not anticipated two or three years ago. As one who took advantage of the Select Committee system to get in many of the best brains and the best informed people in the energy business, I know that the issue of China and India even three years ago was not enjoying the position in our minds that it correctly enjoys now. In part at least, the Government can be excused for some of the blame that the noble Baroness has sought to lay against them. But they are beginning to run out of places to hide. Therefore we need to address the nuclear issue in a systematic and realistic way.
	For a start, it was wrong to assume that by 2019 there will be no more AGRs. We forget that when the lifetime of a nuclear power station was established, if I may use that word, it was no more than a guesstimate. No one really knew. It is quite possible that life-extension arrangements using proper safety considerations can be applied to a number of the AGRs. We are in danger of being unduly pessimistic about this and we should not deny ourselves the right to look into it seriously. We need to look at how we would go about it. Last week the Financial Times provided a helpful checklist of what needs to be done. I remember that the points to address are quite straightforward, but I shall check my notes because I had better get them right.
	As I say, there is the question of life extension. The waste storage settlement needs to be looked at. It is ridiculous that the report is taking so dashed long to come out. Indeed, I doubt whether some of the people who set up the inquiry did not do so on the basis that they wanted to frustrate the nuclear industry. They thought that the issue would go away, and that is regrettable. We also need a proper assessment of the costs, if such a thing is possible. We have to approach this with a good deal more humility than did the previous speaker. If there is one thing that has been consistently wrong with the energy policy of this country, it has been our constant failure to get the sums right on nuclear power.
	If there are people who are agnostic about or hostile to nuclear power, they have very good grounds for it. Let us not forget the way in which nuclear power stations were costed and built, and how each power station is slightly different in character, each with one or other bell and whistle. One of the costs borne by the AGR programme at the moment is the result of the slightly different design of each one, and therefore there is no consistent programme of maintenance. We have got to make sure that when we talk about a new fleet of nuclear power stations, they will be built within a narrow range with few differences. It may be that we have two models or that we go just for one. But that is what we need to look at in the immediate short term.
	I am conscious of the time and I shall be finished in a moment. We need equally to look to the City and to those who will seek to invest in the industry. We must ensure that the regulatory regime is of a character which can assure potential investors that there is a degree of security in their investment. We are talking about a commitment of 40 years and we cannot have blips of the kind that took place in 2002 with British Energy. I could go on for longer, but I do not wish to abuse the tolerance of the House in my first speech. Suffice it to say that the nuclear issue is once more on the agenda. The Government are setting themselves a realistic timetable in which to bring forward the means of appraisal, and by 2015 I think that we could still see the first nuclear power station generating electricity.
	I do not take the Independent's view that it will take 10 years to build a power station. It can be done in five years. But we have to get in place the planning processes, the financial systems and the choice of reactors—and all this must be done within the next two or three years. If we can do that, I am confident that electricity generation and the longer-term security of supply in this country will be possible and achievable.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I sense that the whole House would like to join me in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, on his wonderful maiden speech. It was certainly a tour de force and has given us a taste of what we may expect in the future: a combination of knowledge and passion, delivered with barely a reference to notes. We are perhaps accustomed to maiden speakers using their notes. There was also a touch of controversy, which we are less used to in maiden speeches, but I feel that it was none the worse for that. The noble Lord gave us a great sense of where Scotland leads by example in so many things, certainly not in energy alone. I shall not go into the other examples today, but the noble Lord's reference to the use of biomass was a point that I am sure other noble Lords will want to come back to. As I have said, his speech was a tour de force and I am sure that other speakers will want to refer to it. However, I regret that the noble Lord's contribution was not marked on the list as a maiden speech. Some noble Lords did not realise that and left the Chamber. That being said, we look forward so much to hearing further contributions from the noble Lord.
	I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, for giving us the opportunity to debate this critical matter today. The two issues which drive energy policy now must be climate change and security of supply. On the one hand, we must reduce carbon emissions substantially but, while doing so, we must continue to ensure security of supply. We must also ensure, however, that energy policies produce prices that reduce the numbers of people in energy poverty rather than increase them.
	Critical choices need to be made urgently. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, that these matters are urgent. The political choices will determine in which direction investment will go. I shall therefore concentrate my remarks on the important issue of whether the Government should decide to pursue the new nuclear build policy.
	Perhaps I may anticipate the arguments that some speakers will make today, I believe, for nuclear power. They are, first, that since the 2003 energy White Paper nuclear generation has become more economically viable; secondly, that renewable energy sources and energy saving are not an effective alternative; and, thirdly, that nuclear energy is required to safeguard electricity supplies as demand increases and gas supplies move from national to overseas. I shall deal with each of these arguments in turn, but I shall conclude that new nuclear build is not economically, environmentally or socially a good option. It is not, these Benches believe, the sensible way forward.
	I recognise that it is possible that market conditions have become slightly more favourable towards nuclear power over the past few years. But, crucially, that improvement is not enough to deliver new nuclear power stations without public funding. The independent Oxera report of June 2005 posits some scenarios in which the nuclear industry could enjoy positive returns, but it firmly suggests that government assurances would be required in order to attract the necessary private investment. First, it suggests that between £1.6 billion and £3.2 billion—which is a fairly wide range—of public money would be required in capital grants or debt guarantees to encourage private investment in the industry. There is then the question of reliability. It is self-evident that aging power stations are not particularly reliable—Thorpe, for example, is currently costing some £1 million per day in lost revenue and has never operated effectively. Nuclear power is still not without its difficulties. I appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, said about the "one model" scenario. It is a matter which should be considered.
	Secondly, long-term contracts would have to be agreed with the nuclear industry to make the industry viable, but these contracts would commit us—the public—to agree to continue buying nuclear energy even if other sources of energy become cheaper. This defies the liberal nature of what an energy market should be. It means, quite simply, that if we take up the nuclear option everyone will end up having to pay more for their electricity. Thirdly, there are indirect costs associated with new build. More waste would accumulate and the current waste bill, as we know, is £50 billion.
	Finally, there is the question of insurance against accidents. International liability conventions which cap insurance limits mean that the Government would have to finance the difference in any claims. This is a further hidden subsidy. I do not suppose there is any insurance available against terrorist attacks, but that has to remain a consideration. Such a venture cannot be pursued on a modest scale. If there was to be a new nuclear build, it would need a number of stations to make it viable. That is a substantial risk when one considers the financial situation I have laid out.
	I have heard it said in this House on many occasions—and, indeed, repeated today—that renewable energy and energy-saving are not a viable alternative to new nuclear build; that there would still be an energy gap. I remind the House that more than 20 years ago the Energy Committee spoke of,
	"the many conservation measures which are so much more cost effective than most energy supply investment".
	That has not changed. It is emphasised by recent clear evidence that energy efficiency and renewables are a cheaper means of reducing emissions than nuclear energy. The National Audit Office reports energy savings run by 14 local electricity companies at a cost of 1.8 p per kilowatt, whereas the anticipated costs for nuclear power are 3.9 p. The Performance and Innovation Unit estimates that by 2020 wind power will be cheaper than nuclear energy.
	Investment in alternatives is extremely important. When we are thinking about the energy gap, there is a perception that nuclear energy should be thought about as an alternative—that it can provide a much more significant displacement of emissions. That is erroneous, because electricity generation accounts for only a quarter of this country's carbon dioxide emissions, and of that electricity generation only a fifth is nuclear. So we are talking about one-fifth of one-quarter. On the other hand, investment in renewables and energy efficiency provides the potential for a growing portion of emissions-free electricity. It can also reduce emissions associated with transport and the amount of energy wasted by inefficient transmission from centralised supplies to localised supplies. I am referring to the microgeneration issue, which requires much more energy and attention from the Government.
	When we run through the list of other renewables—biofuels, biomass and novel crops—they all offer potential that has not begun to be explored. In this House, we have touched on water-based power—wave and tidal power—geothermal power and solar power. They are all technologies that, to some extent, have been proved. Some are up and running. But they could be delivering far more if private investors were able to see that the Government were making policy decisions that supported them. One example would be biofuels receiving a renewable transport fuel obligation.
	Finally, I turn to the issue of where the UK needs to position itself as an exporter of technologies. Do we want the developing world to invest heavily in nuclear power, with all the associated risks of terrorism—to which the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, referred—politically unstable countries and natural disasters, such as the earthquake we recently saw in Kashmir? Do we want those countries to have only the option of nuclear power, or do we want them to be able to harness natural resources using the best technology for a sustainable future? I believe that the UK could set a lead by investing in such technologies and then profit from the export of those technologies to countries that could benefit from them.
	Security of supply means that it is urgent that the Government set the scene for private sector investment in energy generation. I believe that it is clear where the money should go for the most cost-effective and sustainable solution. Investment in new nuclear build in Britain will be bought only at the expense of investment in energy efficiency, energy savings and renewable energy alternatives.
	I have not mentioned the associated problem of public acceptance. According to a recent survey by the Institution of Civil Engineers, a very independent body, 77 per cent of people would prefer the construction of wind farms and only 25 per cent want to see new nuclear power stations. The alternative of joint investment in energy savings and renewable supplies is cost-effective and sustainable. When the Government look to the long term, as the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, urged them to do, I hope that they will truly look to the long term and come to the decision that private investment in sustainable sources of energy must be encouraged.

Lord Tombs: My Lords, I add my congratulations those already offered to the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, on his maiden speech. His work on the Select Committee in another place was always an inspiration, and I am sure that he will contribute in a similar vein in your Lordships' House. Perhaps I may remind him in passing that when I was chairman of that now-defunct body the South of Scotland Electricity Board, I had the pleasure of writing to consumers to say that we were not raising our tariffs because of the economic contribution made by the considerable amount of nuclear power then installed. That was not very well received by the environmental lobbyists, but it gave me a great deal of pleasure anyway. Perhaps I may further add that the nuclear industry today is quite capable of competing with fossil fuels when it is not being sabotaged by government and Ofgem, as was the case in NETA.
	We are talking today about long-term energy policy. It is the nub of the present vacuum in the Government's energy policy, which, as has been said many times—but I shall repeat it again—seeks to pursue idealised and inconsistent objectives. The energy supplies available to us are, broadly speaking, fossil fuels, nuclear power and renewables. Reliance recently has been on gas and renewables. The characteristics of renewables are certainly that they produce no CO2 which is very important, but also that they are a very diffuse supply, requiring expensive capital investment and large terrain requirements. They are also variable and have unpredictable availability. They make a substantial contribution to CO2 savings, but at great financial and environmental cost. They do not provide a basis for central electricity supply. They are unsuitable for continuous supply.
	The subsidy of wind was estimated by the Government last year to be £30 billion to 2020. I contrast that with the figure quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, of £1.3 billion to £1.6 billion which the first nuclear power station will reputedly require. I do not accept that figure, but I contrast it anyway with the £30 billion committed, on a limited-time basis, to wind power.
	The greater part of our energy supply system today is based on fossil fuels. Gas was cheap; it is now growing a great deal more expensive as world demand and political factors drive the price upwards. It is also quite a big contributor to CO2 pollution. The subject of CO2 pollution is growing in importance and is becoming increasingly recognised. There is no doubt in my mind that climate change will come to dominate many of our discussions in a way that it has never done in the past.
	Government policy is short term, based, I fear, on the electoral cycle and peripatetic Ministers and civil servants. The decisions that are taken affect a long time ahead, perhaps as long as 50 years, given construction times and the life of the plant. In light of that time scale, to continue to rely so heavily on fossil fuels is economically hazardous and will hasten climate change with unpredictable results. Government attempts to square that circle by reliance on renewables is misconceived and stems largely from a failure to face the facts.
	Reliance on market forces to secure the future, so heavily prized by government, is an illusion. We do not have a free market; we have a highly manipulated one, and we have seen some disastrous effects of that already. More will certainly follow. No market is able to take a view on investments with the time scale that we are considering—that is, the long term.
	As has been said, the new economies of Asia and South America are already challenging industrialised nations and increasing pressure on fossil fuel costs. Their advantage of cheap labour and growing productivity finds us deliberately increasing energy costs at home through reliance on imported gas, oil and coal and subsidies for renewables.
	I have touched on the question of regulation and its part in economic viability, particularly of nuclear power but also of coal. Regulation is an important part of what is virtually a monopoly supply industry, but it must not be confused with long-term planning. At present, I believe that Ofgem's ambitions exceed its powers and experience in its attempts, laudable though they may be, to fill the vacuum in government policy on long-term issues. We must develop a reliable energy supply—reliable in electricity supply terms and in economic terms, based on nuclear power. That will not be easy, given the fragmented nature of the electricity supply industry and the prolonged procrastination by the Government; but it is now urgent. There are some welcome signs of intent but as yet, for me, no grounds for optimism.
	The first requirement is government commitment to the long term, notably lacking to date; and in particular—this point may be controversial but I believe that it should be listened to carefully—the often expressed belief that decisions on new nuclear capacity must await a "solution" to long-term radioactive waste storage. That plea has been used as an excuse for evading the issue—a point hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill. The need for long-term storage provision is with us now in the shape of the legacy of waste from our weapons programmes and the earlier nuclear stations. It is not avoidable, and it is certainly not intractable. As other nations have shown, the technology exists to tackle it; and we have to tackle it regardless of whether not we build new nuclear capacity. To confuse those two decisions is, quite frankly, opportunist and misleading.
	I close my deliberately brief speech by congratulating the noble Baroness on directing the attention of the House to the long term in energy matters. I hope that we may now see the Government address it in a like manner.

Lord Goodlad: My Lords, it is a great honour to be a Member of your Lordships' House and to participate in your deliberations for the first time. After six years away from the Palace of Westminster, five and a half of them in Australia, I have been made to feel very much among friends. Indeed, some of my noble friends of very long standing have reacted to the warmth of my greetings on return with a surprise that clearly betokened an unconsciousness of my period of absence. Like others before me, I have been greatly struck by the kindness and efficiency which officers and officials of the House have shown in helping a new arrival to adjust to unfamiliar surroundings. It is very much appreciated.
	My predecessor as Member of Parliament for Northwich, who represented the division from 1945 to 1974, was the late Sir John Foster. When I was adopted in 1973, he said to me, "You will find that the people here are not much interested in politics. They are much more concerned with good humour and good manners". Your Lordships' House is proof positive that politics, good humour and good manners can happily and constructively co-exist.
	I congratulate my noble friend Lady O'Cathain on her choice of Motion and on her moving of it and thank her for her very kind words. I recollect our shared privations in eastern Europe many years ago. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, opposite whom I sat for so many years, on a knowledgeable and authoritative maiden speech. I also acknowledge the enormous authority of the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, who made such a great contribution to the industry during his career.
	Long-term energy supply is a matter of vital importance to us all. As we have heard from other noble Lords, the country will soon be a net importer of oil and gas. Our existing nuclear power stations and thermal power stations will reach the end of their working lives over the next few years, with the exception of Sizewell B. Increased energy efficiency, which has been promoted by governments for many years and practised for economic reasons by industry, and renewable sources, on which governments and the private sector have spent great sums on research, are unlikely to meet more than a fraction of our growing energy needs. Fusion remains, at best, a distant prospect.
	Other countries, such as India, China and France, are reacting to the ever-growing pressure on the world's limited reserves of fossil fuels and rising energy demands and costs by building new nuclear power stations. For reasons adumbrated by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, I believe that, despite the difficulties, we should do the same.
	As international trade expands, the world and our own economy will become ever more vulnerable to supply disruptions. Climate-destabilising carbon dioxide emissions are likely to continue to increase, raising ever harder questions over the sustainability of our current energy arrangements. Many of the world's poorest people, currently 1.5 billion, will continue to lack access to the basic services provided by electricity which we take for granted.
	We have in this country a world-class nuclear capability. It is vital that it is encouraged and nurtured, both in our own interest and in that of the wider world. Building a new generation of nuclear reactors will require public support. Such support will need more widespread understanding of the work of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. Public opinion towards nuclear power is now historically at a relatively favourable level, but the undecided currently hold the balance. A similar pattern is apparent in Parliament, although support is less strong than once it was, and is inconsistent between the parties.
	There is still an atmosphere of mystery—some even say witchcraft—about nuclear power. It is my belief that complicated issues can be simplified without sacrificing truth or accuracy. I remember giving evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment on the subject of the disposal of radioactive waste, a very few days after taking office as a Minister in the Department of Energy. My compendious departmental brief, which reached me shortly before the meeting was due to take place, was of a density equalled only by its opacity. When the first complicated question from the committee came my way, as I dwelt at generous length on the importance—indeed, centrality—of the question while my mind groped for a reply, an unseen hand from behind placed before me a piece of paper suggesting an answer of pellucid simplicity. The truth was revealed to the committee. In fairness, I see that the committee is still addressing itself to the identical subject matter over 20 years later.
	Immediately after the Chernobyl disaster in the mid-1980s, public support for civil nuclear power plummeted. A few months later, thanks largely to the work of the then newly established Nuclear Energy Information Group, ably led by Dr Tom Margerison, public support had climbed to previously unachieved heights. I believe that what people want are unvarnished facts and clear policy options, simply stated. That is what they deserve, and that is what I hope they will receive. Aspects of our future will depend on it.

Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad. He will not remember this but, for the one term that I was in the other place in 1979–83, the noble Lord was in his second term, as it were, of what turned out to be 25 years of distinguished service in the House. At the same time my noble friend Lord O'Neill also entered the other place. It was also a privilege to hear his speech today.
	The noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, served with distinction in the other place. I recollect, going back many years, that he was a spokesman on energy and foreign affairs. He has the unique distinction, certainly under the Labour government of 1979, of being the only opposition politician appointed to an ambassadorial high commission post abroad. He served there with the distinction that we expected. We will benefit greatly from the noble Lord's wisdom. We look forward to hearing many more speeches from him.
	I touch briefly upon the work of Sub-Committee B of the European Union Committee. Two years ago that committee considered the whole question of the security of gas supplies. At that time the committee's report stated that the succeeding three winters posed the danger of a tight situation arising in that regard, and that it could be even more serious. This winter could pose a similar danger. I share the view that politicians should never scaremonger or exaggerate but should exercise careful judgment. However, a severe winter is forecast this year by independent forecasters. Such a winter could and, in my judgment, would result in genuinely severe disruption to parts of industry. Households are protected as a matter of public policy but business and industry are the risk bearers in the marketplace. Two years ago we warned of such a danger arising. It would be interesting to hear my noble friend the Minister say a few words on his view of that situation as people outside the Chamber are always worried about the immediate position as well as the long term.
	Sub-Committee B stated in its report that in the longer-term gas supplies globally were more than adequate to last many years ahead as far as one could see, but that prices would rise. We acknowledged that there were some problems in that regard. We said that we needed to spread political risks, that prices would rise and that, critically, liberalisation of markets in Europe needed to be genuine and implemented. I do not believe that that latter step has been taken since we published our report. Consumers and businesses in this country have suffered the consequences of that as regards prices. Many major European generators act as quasi-monopolists. They are vertically integrated and able to spread their prices throughout the energy chain and over time in a way that we cannot. They buy on our liquid markets, push up the price—which in the rest of Europe is largely oil-linked—and the consequences of that hit our businesses and consumers severely. Although this touches only the immediate next few years, it would be extremely helpful to hear my noble friend the Minister say what progress is being made under this presidency to secure the liberalisation in the European energy markets that should have started for businesses last year. It should have been implemented already.
	I turn to wider issues of energy policy. Under this administration—going back to 1997—and before that, energy policy was based on market forces for very good reasons: the energy market in the UK had not been liberalised, there was excess capacity, there were inefficiencies and prices were higher than they need be. There is no doubt that over the past few years the liberalisation of energy markets in this country has done a great deal for those markets. On the other hand, things have probably changed a little since then. What has changed? In the short term global energy markets have been a lot more volatile in the past couple of years than one would have said would be the case five or even three years ago.
	Even my own Select Committee, apart from that volatility, did not really take on board the enormous consequences of the growth of India and China in the years ahead. This coming winter may—let us hope that it does not—remind us that markets can do some things but they can lead to problems. There are problems in markets as well as benefits.
	What about the longer term? It is always worth reminding people that this winter, a reasonably cold winter, coal will supply 45 per cent of the peak load and nuclear 23 per cent. Some 68 per cent of electricity generation this winter will come from two energy sources that the Liberal Democrat Benches today said they want to close down. Do people really want to close down energy sources that contribute nearly 70 per cent of electricity production this winter? It is a brave statement to say that you will sweep that away without regard to balance. Can we have balance in our energy mix? We have a balance at the moment—we have gas, we have oil, we have coal, we have nuclear and we have a growing amount of renewables. I regard that as a potential balance. Our question on policy in this country is not whether we have a balance but whether we want to destroy a balance. That is the question. Do we want to go from that balance to a situation where gas contributes by 2020 at least 70 per cent of electricity, quite apart from as a direct fuel? We should be aiming to get the best of both worlds. We should aim for a balance, and we should aim to have market forces in a framework that gives balance and efficiency.
	There has been another change in the position of India and China. In China they are building the equivalent of a new power station every week. Most of those are coal; it is dirty coal. In reality, the world situation is that two of the major drivers for growth in the rest of the world are burning coal on a huge scale and will continue to do so. They are not rich in gas or oil and the only alternative they have is nuclear power stations; and they are building them.
	Gas is no longer the cheap alternative that we thought. It will be a critical and important source, but that should not be an excuse for dismissing other energy sources. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that some of her remarks about nuclear power were not entirely informed. She referred to the problems with THORP, which has nothing to do with nuclear generation. It is to do with reprocessing; it has nothing to do with nuclear power generation.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I am sorry, but I hope the noble Lord will forgive me for putting the record straight. I am well aware of what THORP is for. It was just an example that the nuclear industry costs vast amounts of money, and that has to be taken into account when weighing future investment. I had some more detailed examples, but I did not have the time to give them.

Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, I am most grateful for that explanation. I did miss that point.
	The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, rightly made the point that the nation's legacy of nuclear waste has nothing whatever to do with the future. New nuclear power stations and new technology will produce a fraction of the past waste. I ask Members of the House—if I were in the other place I would ask all Members—to help rational debate, as opposed to what appears to be a determination to argue against a particular energy source regardless of merit. The markets need clarity of policy, and clarity and consistency of a regulatory framework of incentives.
	A coal power station would take a long time to build. My noble friend Lord O'Neill is being rather optimistic. Even if you said that there is now a view in favour of nuclear power stations, it would take 12 to 15 years to go through the process of getting approval, planning, and then building it. Certainly it would take 12 years to get that far. If you invested in nuclear power you would not have a penny or a cent of cash flow—not a positive cash flow nor a profit on the bottom line—for 12 or 15 years. Who would invest in that if there were an atmosphere of prejudice against the industry? There is an unwillingness to face up to the issues and an unwillingness to recognise that it is a carbon clean fuel offering an enormous opportunity for this country—not on its own but as part of a balance.
	Again, we do not have to create a balance in this country; we have to maintain a balance. We can destroy what we have rather than keep what we have. The challenge for the Government is to ensure that there is a regulatory and financial incentive and a policy framework that makes sure that the people of this country have a prized asset that China and India wish they had—a balance of renewables coal, oil, gas and nuclear fuel.

Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I greatly enjoyed the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, as I always do, because he is one of your Lordships who does not believe in making a contribution unless he knows something about the topic. Today, he lived up to the high standards that he sets himself. I was interested when he talked about the liberalisation of energy markets in Europe. It is 15 years since I was Secretary of State for Energy, and that was a great concern of ours then. I remember when I took the first steps to get the first interconnector for gas across to Europe. It is fashionable now to say, like the Prime Minister, that you wish you had done more, because we would have benefited from two interconnectors rather than one. At least we made a start.
	I congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate and on the powerful way in which she opened the debate and deployed her arguments. So far, the debate has well backed up her judgment that it was needed. An adequate and secure supply of energy is essential, and as has already been indicated there is a whole range of concerns. To those we need to add the environmental concerns that were only just emerging when I was Secretary of State for Energy some 15 years ago.
	I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, on his maiden speech. It was a powerful contribution, and one hesitated about whether he was right that it was his maiden contribution, but he probably knows best. It was certainly a powerful speech. I have known him for many years. I cast his mind back to when he was the defence spokesman of his party during the first Gulf War. It was my task as a member of the War Cabinet to keep sounding out different people in the House; I spent most of my life sounding people out about things. I had many a discussion with the noble Lord then, and since they were private discussions I will not reveal anything, except to say that I never found that the noble Lord had any desire other than the national interest in all those tricky moments. He was absolutely right.
	As for my noble friend Lord Goodlad, I feel I almost ought to declare an interest in his maiden speech, as he is one of my oldest friends. I remember ringing him on behalf of the Prime Minister—I think he was in Scotland at the time—to ask him whether he would honour us by going into the Energy Department. He said that he would do so, and he has been contributing in many ways from that date onwards. I have another reason for thanking him. Following the bomb at Brighton, I lived in his house for many months, as did my children. His children and my children were the same age, and his home was my home for a long time. I shall always be grateful to him for that.
	I intervene in this debate to say one or two words about environmental matters. Last July, the Economic Affairs Select Committee, of which I am chairman, produced a report on the economic dimension of related energy and environmental matters. In our report, we cast considerable doubt not on the science of global warming but on the economics. We asked how fast it was happening and what was the best way of tackling the considerable problems that emerge.
	A short time before the publication of our report, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House had announced that in future the Government would respond to all reports from Select Committees within two months. That was four months ago, and the reply has not yet arrived. To be absolutely fair to the noble Baroness—the Minister need not worry; this is not a criticism—she also said that where a report is complex or technical, the response may on occasion require a little longer. I make no complaint about that; big issues are at stake. But I was amused by a letter I received the other day from the Minister with responsibility for climate change, which gave the explanation that Treasury officials were away in the summer. However, as I said, that is of little consequence and we are expecting the report soon.
	I want to make one or two short points. It is interesting that government policy seems to have moved since we published our report. I am sure the Minister will say that it has not but I shall give noble Lords the evidence. First, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 19 July, less than two weeks after the committee had reported, the establishment of an important new interdepartmental committee under the Government's Chief Economist, Sir Nick Stern, to examine the economics of climate change and to report to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. I warmly welcome that review; it is almost exactly what the committee recommended. If the Government always responded so positively and quickly to good advice when they receive it, we would get on a lot better.
	Secondly, at the so-called "Clinton Summit" in New York on 15 September, the Prime Minister indicated a rather radical change in the direction of government thinking. He said:
	"probably I'm changing my thinking about this [climate change] in the past two or three years . . . If we are going to get action on this, we have got to start from the brutal honesty about the politics of how we deal with it. The truth is no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem. What countries are prepared to do is to try to work together co-operatively to deal with this problem in a way that allows us to develop the science and technology in a beneficial way.".
	On Kyoto, the Prime Minister went on to say that there is,
	"a disagreement . . . It's not going to be resolved. But how do we move forward? . . . That can only be done by the major players . . . coming together and finding a way of pooling their resources, their information, their science and technology in order to find the ways of allowing us to grow sustainably . . . To be honest, I don't think people are going, at least in the short term, to start negotiating another international treaty like Kyoto".
	That is almost exactly the same argument as we deployed in a report which was supported by all sides of this House, including the Cross Benches, and it is a very encouraging sign. So we are encouraged and we are looking forward to the Government's response.
	We also see distinct signs that, again, the Government are to take a serious look at the case for nuclear energy. If they do, they will find, as the noble Lord said, that neither the costings nor the waste management are quite the problem that they were in the past. The problems of waste management in modern nuclear power stations are nothing like they used to be, and the costings are very much more realistic. Of course there are problems, but if the Government go down that route, they will find a lot of support.
	In my view, it is essential that the Government actively re-examine some of the somewhat doubtful assumptions about the roles of renewable energy and energy efficiency enshrined in the current energy and climate change policy. I also believe that the Government need to replace the current climate change levy with a carbon tax as soon as possible. Finally—I shall sit down on this note—the Government must stop pretending, as their White Paper did, that there is a free lunch somewhere in all this. There are some very tough, difficult decisions ahead, and the sooner we start making them, the better.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I express my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, and congratulate her on leading us into this very important debate. It is one in which she has participated over a number of years, and I think that today she, like me, must warmly welcome the fact that an increased band of brothers and sisters are participating. Among that band, I express particular congratulations to my noble friend Lord O'Neill and the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, on their excellent contributions. I am sure that today the Government will have taken note that, as the band of participants increases, the message to them is still largely the same but now it is being echoed by more and more people.
	We had a substantial and substantive debate on this issue on 19 June, led by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs. We might ask ourselves: what has changed nine months later? I was thinking about this yesterday. Oil and gas prices are higher; strategic stocks are lower; and the forecasts for renewables are seen more and more as optimistic incantations rather than realistic attainable goals.
	The other thing that has changed is that the Government are reviewing the situation, but this time I do not say that quite as sceptically or cynically as it may have sounded. Although, if anything, nine months later we are in a more parlous position than we were previously, we should all be encouraged by the speech made this year by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in that most dangerous of places for a Labour Party leader—the Labour Party Conference. In his excellent speech to the conference he said:
	"Next year too"—
	I will come back to "next year"—
	"building on Britain's Kyoto commitments, we will publish proposals on energy policy. Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it. And for how much longer can countries like ours allow the security of our energy supply to be dependent on some of the most unstable parts of the world? For both reasons the G8 Agreement must be made to work so we develop together the technology that allows prosperous nations to adapt and emerging ones to grow sustainably; and that means an assessment of all options, including civil nuclear power".
	I regard that as a very important speech, and I do not think that the words "civil nuclear power" crept into it lightly or wantonly.
	But the promise of "next year", which has already been referred to, covers a multitude of options. It could be two months or 14 months away. I would value precision in that regard and, when my noble friend replies to the debate, perhaps he could give a clue to when it might happen. That precision is needed, particularly in the light of the warning as recently as this month in The State of the Nation 2005 report of the Institution of Civil Engineers:
	"As the UK becomes more dependent on imported gas, the prospect of the nation losing control of its energy supply, and with it a grip on prices and carbon emissions, looms ever larger".
	That should not still be knocking around by the time we get the next the next state of the nation annual report, if we have got to grips with the options that the Government are putting forward.
	The options for securing our energy supply are limited. Our concerns about global warming and the warning of the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King—which he re-emphasised on Radio 4 this morning, when he said that he believes as firmly as ever that global warming is a greater threat to mankind than international terrorism—make our Kyoto obligation imperative at a time when the most recent trends show us beginning to slow our rate of progress. If that trend continues, we will be in danger of reversing the progress we have already made.
	Global warming is a serious problem. The Kyoto goals are becoming problematic, all the more so as generation by renewables is up against targets which look increasingly unattainable. Generation by nuclear is under threat unless decisions on a new generation of nuclear power stations are made soon and put into effect quickly.
	I assume that everybody in this House shares certain common goals. I assume that we share a commitment to carbon emission reduction on the scale that we have committed ourselves to internationally. Secondly, I assume that we all want to see guaranteed continuity of generation, sufficient not only to meet our existing needs but also to ensure the increased future needs that arise from the economic growth that we and our parties readily and constantly commit ourselves to achieving every time there is a general election and our political parties face the public. We are committing a cruel deception if we promise economic growth without having a policy that guarantees the continuity of energy supplies in order to fuel it. We cannot constantly promise ever-rising standards of living without accepting that there is a concomitant obligation to fuel our industry and commerce.
	The equation becomes more complex: less carbon emissions, not more; more electricity, not less. Yet we are doing this against a background where roughly a third of our current demand is coal-fired, producing carbon emissions. A third of electricity generation is gas-fuelled, but our gas is running out and most alternative supplies are highly politically volatile: Russia, the central Asian republics, the Middle East and Libya.
	That leaves us with the remaining third, which is currently generated by nuclear, oil or renewables. All the solutions have to be found within that one third. We have to keep, maintain and advance our Kyoto obligations within it. That final third must be clean and carbon emission-free if Kyoto goals are more than a cynical myth. Oil is imported, expensive and politically unreliable. Its present role should be retained, and may even grow. It cannot, however, fill the gap caused by the current programme of nuclear power station closures.
	Renewables should be continued and expanded. Nobody is going to dispute that. I am not prepared, however, to guarantee the future that we promise to our electorate on the basis that we will achieve the current targets. I will be the first to say how delighted I am, if and when we meet them. To close down supplies in the hope and expectation that unrealistic goals are going to be achieved is not a policy; it is an abrogation of responsibility to our people.
	Although renewables should be continued and expanded, those targets currently make Alice in Wonderland look like a work of non-fiction. That leaves us, therefore, only with nuclear. It is declining fast, but still being genuflected towards—we keep the nuclear option open, even though the skilled staff necessary for the future of the nuclear industry are disappearing fast. There is now a need for a quick decision on planning and implementation of the new generation without the normal delays associated with planning consent, and for the generation to be on-stream to meet our current needs.
	I conclude that nuclear generation must quickly become more than an option. It must become an imperative and, without a positive decision on it, we will be seen by the world to be mocking our Kyoto obligations. As a famed noble Baroness who recently celebrated her birthday—somebody I am not that fond of quoting—said, in totally different circumstances, "There is no alternative".

Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I agree with a number of things that the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, has said, particularly how splendid it is to see the addition to the band of brothers and sisters that will continue to put pressure on the Government to pursue a realistic energy policy. I join him, too, in offering warm congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, and my noble friend Lord Goodlad, on two admirable maidenspeeches.
	Yesterday, I had the honour of chairing, along with the noble Lord, Lord Broers, an Anglo-Norwegian conference on the oil and gas industry, in which both our countries are of course heavily involved. The conference was opened by His Majesty King Harald and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. There were many distinguished presentations, and one which I admired in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, the Chief Executive of British Petroleum.
	Many important messages came out of that conference. A very important one, which we should bear in mind, was that oil and gas in the North Sea—and, increasingly, the Barents Sea and north of the Shetlands—is not a sunset industry. It has a considerable future, and billions of pounds are being invested by the companies active there. A second message is that, yes, we are going to become a net importer of gas next year. An increasing quantity of that gas is going to come from Norway, with the opening of the Langeled pipeline, which will itself be a huge engineering achievement.
	The less attractive message is that if we are going to rely increasingly, as many speakers have recognised, on gas, oil and coal, then emissions from those sources are bound to increase. There is no option on that. The idea, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, that somehow we can do without them is, if I may say so politely, pie in the sky. It will not happen. The industry is substantially reducing the amount of emissions in a variety of ways and we heard a number of presentations on that. It is working very hard to increase the efficiency of its operations to curb the increase in emissions.
	The two leading speakers, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the Norwegian chairman of Statoil, Helge Lund, were asked point blank, "What do you want governments to do?". The answer was equally brief; "What the industry needs is a stable fiscal and regulatory environment". That was warmly received. I have been tempted to use in my speech today the speeches made to yesterday's conference, but that would take me well beyond the confines of the Motion, which my noble friend Lady O'Cathain moved with such force. She called for policy decisions which reflect the long-term needs of this country. I shall therefore resist the temptation to repeat the conference today.
	It has been widely recognised that everywhere one goes in this country there is a rising tide of concern and real anxiety about where the Government's policy is taking us. It comes from the science and technology community—the Royal Society; the Royal Academy of Engineering; the Institution of Civil Engineers, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson—and also from the major trade associations concerned such as the CBI and the Engineering Employers' Federation and specialist bodies such as the Electricity Networks Association. Common to all is the demand for a clear, long-term strategic framework within which the market can make long-term strategic investments. As the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, has frequently warned the House, that is not what is happening today. The Science and Technology Committee of this House, notably in its report, Renewables: the Technicalities, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has pointed firmly to the fact that it is all short-termism at the moment.
	During my few minutes, I want to concentrate on two issues. The first is the supplies of gas. Our own supplies are declining and we are net importers. Increasingly that will be so. Despite the huge investments now being made on pipelines and LNG terminals, they will take some time to come on stream. The current investment completions are scheduled to be spread over seven years, taking us up to 2012. At the end of that period, the import capacity may be roughly equal to our present consumption of gas. But of course the demand for gas will continue to increase. It is not a happy picture.
	Annual demand is not constant throughout the year. Evidence I have shows that no in more than a 1-in-10 cold winter, demand will exceed supply for more than 50 days in the year. If it is a 1-in-50 cold winter—I well remember the winter of 1947 when we shivered in Catterick Camp where I was then stationed—demand will exceed supply for more than three months. I find that a difficult and worrying situation.
	One asks the question: why are we in this position? The answers I have had from the United Kingdom Offshore Oil Association state:
	"Necessary market signals not apparent early enough—emphasis on short term regulatory issues, at expense of long term investment and security of supply".
	That is totally in line with my noble friend's Motion. The association indicates that there are other difficulties, including,
	"Under-estimation of time required to initiate major, international projects".
	The recent treaty with Norway and onshore storage are also referred to.
	We are threatened with a cold winter this year and I sufficiently believe in old saws to think that will be so. The number of berries on my large holly bush is larger than I have ever seen. That is one of the signs of a hard winter. I say to the Minister that if industry has to be cut off in order to safeguard domestic supplies—and that is the strategy—let no one be in any doubt where the blame lies. It is the Government's failure to provide a stable, long-term framework in which long-term decisions can be made.
	I suppose that we may take some modest comfort from the reply given only this week by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham. He said:
	"It is why, in fact, we are promising next year a complete review of the position on energy, because we realise that the situation needs long-term solutions".—[Official Report, 24/10/05; col. 1022.]
	One cheers for the single soul who is redeemed, but I hope that that represents a long-term policy.
	There has been a concentration on generation, but I want to talk now about transmission and distribution. That is every bit as important. We are faced with the stark fact that by 2050 practically all existing generation sources will no longer exist and there will be huge changes. The network operators are demanding that decisions are made now and clear signals sent so that networks can begin the long and potentially expensive process of reshaping the transmission and distribution infrastructure. The generation mix is changing and this will require changes to the networks. There has already been reference to renewable sources and the major problems caused for the operation of the distribution and transmission networks, mainly because of intermittency.
	I am told that local distribution networks will have to become much more actively managed systems. That will require a great deal of research to prove the system reliable in the field and to build it into the networks. Other factors affect the high-voltage transmission networks. If the National Grid is to continue to handle large base-load generation such as nuclear power stations, and I am sure that it will, alongside standby generation to fill the gap when the wind is not blowing, that is likely to require new or increased network infrastructure. I was interested in what the Prime Minister said to the European Parliament yesterday about a European grid, but I share the anxieties of the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, on whether we will ever see the liberalisation that will make that possible. That, too, will affect the interconnection of cross-border requirements.
	All that will call for changes in the regulatory framework affecting transmissions. In following the privatisation of the industry, one can see that there have already been huge improvements in the efficiency of the network. The figure I have been given is that that has resulted in network charges to customers falling by 50 per cent in real terms since 1990. That is a triumph which needs to be shouted abroad. That is what privatisation was able to produce. But the question now being asked, and I quote from a note from the Electricity Networks Association, is,
	"whether the current framework of incentives gives sufficient weight to long-term considerations of the environment and network development"
	We come back yet again to the need to look into the longer term. That is a very important statement from a crucial industry, an industry which represents the link between the generation of power and the customers who use that power. I hope that the Minister—and I gave him notice that I was going to ask about this—will be able to give me a positive reply.
	Here we have a whole series of messages coming from industries, trade associations and professional bodies across the field, which call for a new long-term approach. The noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, talked about—and he used a telling phrase—the need for clarity in the regulation system. That is what we need. It is not what we are getting. I congratulate my noble friend Lady O'Cathain on giving us the opportunity to press this case again today.

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I, too, appreciate the proposal of the noble Baroness for the debate, which has been interesting. I was going to start my intervention with two pleas, the first of which is largely unnecessary because, apart from the holly bush of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, we have not had too many references to the lights going out next winter. This has been a long-term debate. But the second of my pleas clearly is necessary, unfortunately. That is not to allow the whole debate on the long-term energy needs to be obsessed by the issue of an early decision on a nuclear power station.
	Too many of the speakers so far have focused a large part of their remarks on that front. My own view, despite being an ex-Defra Minister, is that I am not opposed to nuclear power. Indeed, in my youth I worked in nuclear power and for a trade union that had a substantial membership in that industry. I suspect that at some time in the next 20 years we shall need nuclear power on-stream, possibly in this country, and certainly in the world, and it will be part of the solution to the climate change problem.
	However, what we should really be focusing on—almost everybody has focused on the supply side—is how we are going to take measures to control the growth of demand for energy and, in particular, the growth of demand for carbon-based energy. I would assert that, despite the knockings it has had during the debate and outside, the energy White Paper set out a good structure for our long-term future for energy, and, by and large, with a few modifications which I shall come on to, I think that it still stands. My concern is that all of us—government, industry and society—have not faced up to the decisions that are required in order for that energy White Paper strategy to be fully delivered.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, is no longer in his place. I do not accept, as he said, that the energy White Paper was like a free lunch. It was not. Some very hard decisions were employed in following the trajectory set out by that White Paper. It marked a substantial change in energy policy. For the previous two decades energy policy had been dominated by trying to get the lowest possible price by increasing competition. Increasing competition is to be welcomed, but competition is a means towards an end; and if the only end is the lowest price, we have bad signals for the use of energy and the long-term security of energy supply within this country, and a low energy price. That era may now be over, and there are some benefits in that. We do not like episodic sudden changes, upward movements of oil prices or energy prices in general. But if there is a consensus that we are all facing a high price of energy, a lot of our decisions will become clearer.
	The energy White Paper—and here I would like to modify it slightly if I was able to—set four objectives of energy policy, one of which was price competitiveness. The dominant objective of energy policy now needs to be carbon reduction. That should override all other objectives of that energy policy. I do not think that we have that degree of clarity yet. There are some consequences for other objectives—consequences for fuel poverty of higher energy prices, and consequences for fuel security—but carbon reduction must be the overriding aim. The noble Baroness informs us that we are having a debate on climate change in a couple of weeks' time so I shall not go into that in great detail, but that must be our primary objective.
	My main purpose in speaking here is to say that we must take greater note of how we control, reduce and persuade people to restrict their demand for energy. Higher prices will do some of that. It will make companies and individuals take energy costs much more seriously, but that needs to be augmented by changes in the way that government and industry approach energy use.
	It is no good simply relying on price changes and in general exhortation. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and others called for a clearer regulatory structure. Part of that regulatory structure means an ever tightening control on the regulatory and fiscal intervention in terms of energy use. It should be clear that over a long period the fiscal strategy will be to make high-energy goods and services more expensive than low-energy and low-carbon services. If we could use our fiscal measures and if the regulatory framework could also be based on that structure, we would get a lot more response from society and the economy.
	We all know that it is difficult to change your behaviour when you are not under those pressures. We need intervention and we need price signals in order for us to make the changes in our behaviour. Whether talking about choice of fridges, computers or cars, we all know that we need price signals and also some sort of societal approval. There are other elements that can be introduced to this, not only in terms of design. We are supposed to be the world leaders in design, and yet we do not quite manage to make energy-efficient light bulbs, energy-efficient cars or energy-efficient washing machines look more attractive to the consumer than those gas-guzzlers and high carbon-content energy users. Surely, we could use all the talent in this country and worldwide to make things that use substantially less energy more consumer-friendly.
	In that area it is important that we focus on the demand side, and in particular consumer and small-business demand, which is not changing to the degree that government policy would suggest it needs to and which some big corporations are beginning to change.
	I allude to one other dimension of energy efficiency. That is our relative failure to make progress towards the combined heat and power target set in the energy White Paper. Here I must declare an interest. As of last night I was designated the president of the Combined Heat and Power Association, in that I am taking over from the noble Lord, Lord Wade, who has been very assiduous in that respect over the years. As some noble Lords will know, he has not been well recently. I wish him a rapid recovery.
	Combined heat and power has been faced with adverse market movements in the relative price of gas and electricity. That has severely restricted the economics of it in an episodic short-term sense, but that has been aggravated by some of the regulatory interventions, particularly the introduction of NETA in its original form. While the situation has improved, it has not fully moved to one of the encouragement of combined heat and power. Likewise, I hope more encouragement will be given to combined heat and power generation—as the Europeans call it—in the second phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme than was given in the first.
	The Government should give much more serious consideration to the removal of CHP-based generation from the renewables obligation. I hope the Minister will take that on board. If we were to recognise the contribution which heat can make to energy efficiency, reckon heat to be as important as power and that the loss of heat is an important inefficiency within the total system, then the economics and the technology of combined heat and power would be able to make a much more significant contribution to carbon saving. Of course CHB can be based on any fuel base—on gas, as it normally is, on biomass, and on nuclear power. That is one technology I think we should give greater recognition to.
	On the supply side I think that the knocking of the renewables contribution to this objective is out of place. The Government do not claim in the energy White Paper that renewables will replace coal or nuclear as the base load, but we think that the 20 per cent objective for 2020 can be achieved and that we can do better than that if we fully invest in both the technology and the capital investment required for the various forms of renewable powers. That includes biomass—I commend to the House the report produced by Sir Ben Gill earlier this week on the potential for biomass—and wind power. I deplore the occasional antagonism that arises in this House towards any form of wind power. It also includes tide and wave power, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said. All of them will involve investment in engineering and technology. I believe that a significant contribution can be made there.
	A significant contribution is also to be made in cleaning up coal, gas and oil-based generation and use by carbon sequestration and carbon storage. That will not eliminate the entirety of carbon emissions from those forms of fuel, but if we are to build or refurbish existing coal-powered stations, we can introduce forms of carbon sequestration and carbon storage that will limit the degree to which they contribute to carbon emission.
	We need to take a global view. Whether we like it or not, the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and so on will not fire their industrial revolution through biomass or alternative technology to any dramatic extent, but will still invest in coal-fired power stations for the foreseeable future. We in the West are on the cusp of having the technology that will allow us to do that, with much less effect on carbon emissions than the current technology in which they are currently investing. So we have a global obligation.
	I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, was wrong to say that the Government have changed their position since the energy White Paper, but we need to intensify our efforts on delivery of that White Paper. The Prime Minister was rightly referring to the political difficulties of getting international agreement on the matter. He was querying neither the technology, the science of climate change nor the economics. Although I welcome the main recommendation in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, from the Economic Affairs Committee, some of its phraseology was rather negative about our taking it seriously. That played a little too much to the sceptical gallery.
	Where I agree with him, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and others is that in all these areas—energy saving, energy efficiency, alternative technologies, carbon-saving measures in relation to carbon-based fuels and nuclear power—a much better investment is needed by this country in engineering and research and development for us to deliver a balanced energy programme that does not depend solely on a single decision on a very large nuclear power station, but takes advantage of all forms and sources of fuel and decentralises provision of power a lot more in all the developments that we shall introduce in this country during the next few years.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lady O'Cathain for introducing this vital topic. I have had enormous pleasure in listening to two outstanding maiden speeches.
	First, I have one general point before I turn to my main topic. I believe strongly that for both environmental and supply reasons we need nuclear power. I am not knocking renewables, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, put it, when I say that few people outside government believe that the target of 10 per cent of electricity supply from renewable sources by 2010 will be met. If the Government do not act—

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way and if he was going to touch on this point, I hope that he will forgive me, but, with his particular knowledge of the Severn Estuary and south-east Wales, what is his view on the potential of a Severn barrage? Does he take the view that I and, more importantly, a number of Members of Parliament representing Welsh constituencies, do that the endlessly renewable energies of the Severn Estuary are an asset of which we should take full advantage?

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I do not intend to debate the Severn barrage. We need much more work done on tidal and wave power. There are serious environmental obstacles to a Severn barrage and I do not back it.
	Perhaps I may return to the subject that I want to address. If the Government do not act, the country will be left with little other than new gas plants which, even if current gas prices fall, will still be expensive in both greenhouse gas emissions and price. Liquefied natural gas is an expensive source and the Department of Trade and Industry says that a third of the UK's gas supplies will come from shipments of LNG. British nuclear power supplies a fifth of our electricity and, by 2015, a third of total UK power stations—nuclear and coal—will probably have closed. Wind is inherently incapable of providing a secure supply.
	Given the 10-year lead time to even start the first nuclear build—I do not share the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, on that topic—there is a need for urgent action. We need to know the Government's plans, and early decisions must follow very quickly before serious damage is done to industry, the economy and the environment.
	I turn to the principal point that I want to make. There needs to be a fundamental review of the planning arrangements for LNG terminals. In an e-mail exchange with the Health and Safety Executive in February 2004 about the Exxon Mobil-Qatar gas project at Milford Haven, a DTI official said that his reason for contacting HSE was to point out that,
	"the project would make an important contribution to UK security of gas supply from winter 2007/8 . . . any delay would jeopardise reliability (security) of supply".
	If the shortcomings that have been revealed by the Milford Haven application are repeated in other cases, it is likely that future applications will face serious obstacles. Furthermore, both safety and public confidence will be undermined if the regulatory bodies are thought to be under pressure from government departments in how they perform their duties.
	In Milford Haven, my former constituency, the issue has revealed serious flaws in the planning process that have caused understandable public anxiety and led to a judicial review case. Two separate applications for planning permission for LNG terminals on former oil refinery sites were submitted to the relevant planning authorities. One terminal is to be operated by Petroplus, close to the towns of Milford Haven, Neyland, and Pembroke Dock. The other application was on the half of the Exxon Mobil-Qatar Gas consortium for a terminal at South Hook, close to the west side of the town of Milford Haven, using the existing oil terminal jetty extending one kilometre to the edge of the main waterway.
	The Health and Safety Executive has statutory responsibility for safety aspects onshore and on the jetties. The initial HSE report on the Petroplus application contained the following paragraph concerning vapour plumes and flash fires resulting from a major release from a delivery ship while moored at the jetty:
	"It is clear that such plumes, centred on the jetty, are capable of engulfing the densely populated developments of Milford Haven (town), Neyland or Pembroke Dock. But without . . . guidance on the frequency to be assigned to the release, an ignition probability analysis cannot be undertaken to determine their significance in risk terms".
	The HSE says that guidance was sought in early 2004 from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister as to whether the HSE was responsible for advising on hazardous substances from ships unloading at a jetty. It states that advice was received from the ODPM that that was, "not in scope".
	At this point, having referred to the HSE, I want to make it clear that I have no reason to doubt that it has taken all prudent steps to cover its responsibilities. In April of this year, in the absence of Ministers engaged in the general election campaign, I wrote to Dame Mavis McDonald, the permanent secretary at the ODPM, about the department's advice, posing a series of detailed questions about responsibilities. My fear was that a black hole existed between those responsible for ensuring safety on land and those responsible for maritime safety. The responses that I received from Dame Mavis, and subsequently from Alistair Darling at the Department for Transport, from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and from the Milford Haven Port Authority have not mitigated that initial fear.
	Despite the statement made by the HSE that advice had come from the ODPM, that was denied by Dame Mavis, who, oddly, refers to,
	"an informal telephone call over two years ago of which my officials have no recollection".
	She advised that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency is responsible for carriage of dangerous goods by sea. However, the agency is not a statutory consultee in the planning process and was not involved at Milford Haven. Alistair Darling informed me in a letter in July that the MCA, an executive agency of his department, had responsibility for the port safety code, but that that is voluntary and the MCA is not empowered to ensure compliance.
	Responsibility for the safety of tanker movements within the port lies, therefore, with the Milford Haven Port Authority. It is not a statutory consultee in the planning process, and apparently neither the DfT nor the MCA is in a position to see that it does its job properly. I simply pose this question: if there were a serious accident, could the DfT and other government departments really disclaim responsibility? Over the past year they have been given ample warnings.
	One of the reasons for our anxieties is the port authority's reluctance to give clear written statements on the measures that it is taking to ensure the safe operation of LNGs in the port. It is true that Ted Sangster, the chief executive, has been more open in face-to-face meetings, but his reluctance to answer specific questions in writing has been one factor in the lack of confidence that exists. For example, a repeated question about whether a full quantitative risk assessment had been carried out for each of the terminals meeting the standards specified by the Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators—SIGTTO—was fobbed off with general statements about a range of risk assessments, many of them carried out by or with the organisations that are to operate the terminals. Mr Sangster told me when we met that QRAs for both terminals were carried out by the operators but not by the authority and that there had been no disclosure of the full details because of commercial confidentiality. Surely, that is an unacceptable excuse when safety is involved. Mr Sangster informed me that,
	"there is as much risk of being killed by lightning as there being a pool fire from an LNG ship in the port large enough to injure people nearby".
	There is a report in the Daily Telegraph today of a boy killed by lightning.
	Contrast Mr Sangster's opinion with the judgment of SIGTTO, the operators' own organisation, which has maintained its members' undoubtedly very good record by setting high standards. It says:
	"LNG tankers are vulnerable to penetration by collisions with heavy displacement ships at all but the most moderate speeds. Such incidents ought to be treated as credible within any port where heavy displacement ships are an operating environment with LNG tankers . . . the risk profile of LNG tankers presents a very serious residual hazard in port areas if the vital structure of the tanker is penetrated".
	SIGTTO states that, whatever the prevailing circumstances, no terminal should be sited in a position that admits the possibility of its being approached by heavy displacement ships, having an inherent capability for penetrating the hull of an LNG tanker. It adds that,
	"where such encounters are possible a protective barrier should be erected to shield the LNG terminal",
	and that,
	"all port traffic must be excluded from the environs of an LNG terminal".
	The South Hook terminal, close to the fairway used by all other ships, fails to comply with any of those recommendations.
	The port authority, which has a substantial commercial interest in maximising the volume of shipping using the port, states that it operates an open-port policy and has no ability to prevent shipping entering the waterway. But harbour authorities have duties to ensure the safety of waters within their areas of jurisdiction, using powers provided by the Dangerous Substances in Harbour Regulations 1987, which enable them to regulate entry of LNG ships into the harbour.
	In response to a PQ from me, the Secretary of State for Transport stated that there were no plans to review the existing arrangements. I pray that no serious accident involving LNG will occur, but it seems clear that the present arrangements, fractured between shore and ship, and with marine controls that are not sufficiently independent, open or subject to second-party review, are seriously flawed. Any major accident would not only have a tragic impact on those directly affected, but would have devastating consequences for LNG operators and British energy policy. Before applications are made for terminals at other places, we need sounder planning and safety management arrangements put in place. Port authorities should be statutory consultees in the planning process. A port authority dealing with safety issues should not be able to plead exemption from the Freedom of Information Act or to withhold information about safety issues on grounds of commercial confidentiality.
	I question whether a voluntary port safety code is an adequate defence; and surely if a commercial organisation is the policing authority, there should be a process that enables a truly independent body to review its actions and intervene if serious faults are revealed. The case for a review before something goes badly wrong is surely compelling.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, I must confess that I have much less experience and expertise on the subject of energy supplies—which we are debating today thanks to the useful initiative of the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain—than many noble Lords speaking before and after me. That certainly includes the two maiden speakers, the noble Lords, Lord O'Neill and Lord Goodlad. Nevertheless, I was head of the Foreign Office's energy department between 1977 and 1979, when energy supply issues were as sensitive and urgent as at any time in recent history. I learnt something then of their intractability and of the difficulty that politicians in democracies have in grappling with them effectively.
	There are some similarities between that earlier period towards the end of the 1970s and the present one. Then, too, we had just been subjected to a massive and rapid increase in the oil price. Then, too, the risk of an interruption in oil supplies hung over the market. It actually came on that occasion with the collapse of the Shah's regime in Iran. Then, too, to a far greater extent than so far this year, inflationary pressures were stoked by the rise in oil prices. And, then, too, a Labour government were inhibited by the viscerally anti-nuclear-power views of a substantial number of its Members of Parliament from taking the necessary decisions about the future development of that part of our energy-supply equation.
	However, there are just as many differences as similarities with that earlier period, some of which reflect successful remedial action taken under the impact of events. We have better international arrangements for handling an interruption in oil supplies than we did then, and we have more experience of operating them. We are a bit less likely to slip into a prolonged period of stagflation than we were then. We require far less energy per unit of production and have begun to develop a number of sources of renewable energy. But those successes have bred complacency, none more so than the 25-years cushion of abundant supplies of North Sea oil and gas, which has protected us from supply risks and supported our public finances to an extent that none of our industrialised-country peers has enjoyed.
	We face a period of considerable risk. We do so without any hope that that North Sea cushion will protect us to the extent that it has done hitherto. Moreover, we do so at a time when a new challenge, climate change, requires us to avoid some of the solutions to energy supply problems that we thought of as very useful before: increased use of coal, for example, which used to be seen as a sovereign remedy. Some pressures on energy supplies are not even ones which we ought to want to see removed. The huge increased demands for energy by China and India, and possibly in future by other developing countries, are basically benign phenomena—at least they would be if we could help those countries by technology transfer to increase the efficiency with which they use energy supplies in their industrial production. They are benign because they reflect a rapid expansion in global economic activity and bring about a reduction in poverty.
	The first lesson that I learnt from that earlier period is that there are no quick fixes in energy policy that will guarantee security of supply rapidly and at a reasonable cost; nor are there any silver bullets in the form of one single remedy to our problems. The greatest problem with policy making in this field in a democracy is that the time horizon for the development of most solutions lies far beyond that of most governments. Each of the solutions stirs up controversy and opposition to an extent that makes putting off decisions a seductive option—hence our present quandary. We have been putting off taking decisions for quite a few years, and they have not become any easier to take.
	Another lesson learnt is that a Gadarene rush to try to corner the main sources of supply is unlikely to work and could become a dangerous cause of international tension. It is only too easy to see how unbridled international competition for scarce resources between the new industrial powers and the existing principal consumers could lead to friction and even conflict. We need even stronger international co-operation on energy policy than we have now and more co-operation between oil and gas producers and consumers, with no return to the confrontations of the 1970s.
	However successful we may be at promoting international co-operation and ensuring ready access to overseas supplies, it would be irresponsible to come to rely almost exclusively on such supplies. The best-laid networks of international supply cannot be entirely proof against disruption by unexpected political developments. Many of the world's main resources of oil and gas are situated in regions of chronic instability over whose future development we have only the most modest degree of influence. Yet, we are gradually allowing ourselves to slide towards that greater dependence on overseas sources of supply, while doing extraordinarily little to reverse the trend. It seems to have escaped the attention of many people in this country—not those who speak in your Lordships' House—that, if we simply allow the early generations of nuclear power plant to go out of commission in the next few years without any replacement, that is precisely what we shall be doing.
	I do not see how we can any longer responsibly duck the taking of decisions on nuclear power generation; nor do I see how we can responsibly allow nuclear power to play a smaller part in our energy mix than it has done hitherto. Also, I do not see how those who give the greatest importance to our fulfilling our obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, among whom I include myself, can refuse to see how a reduction in our nuclear power generation in circumstances in which a massive increase in renewables beyond even the current highly optimistic targets is simply not achievable will push us even further away from Kyoto, whereas an expansion of our nuclear capacity would enable us to give a lead in achieving and moving beyond the Kyoto objectives.
	Much will, no doubt, be said about the problem of nuclear waste disposal. It raises serious and complex issues, but can or should it be considered as a complete conversation stopper, blocking any future development of nuclear power until, as my noble friend Lord Tombs said, a "solution" is found? Is it not just one more risk factor in a series of equations that require the weighing of many risks?
	The Prime Minister has promised us a full review of energy policy next year in which the issue of nuclear power will no longer be off-limits, as it has been for so long. That is fine so far as it goes, which is not terribly far. The Minister of State for Energy has said that he is neutral on the question of nuclear energy, although what that means I have not the slightest idea. What is needed is not so much reviews and debates as decisions. The former may be necessary preliminaries to the latter, but, if they do not lead on expeditiously to the latter, this country will continue to slide towards a position in which the security of its energy supplies is less and less assured.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady O'Cathain for having introduced the debate today. I am equally pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, who touched on some important issues that my noble friend raised at the beginning. We are considering the early policy decisions; we are talking not about what may happen in the future but about what we should do now. My noble friend rightly said that there was no strategy. She and the rest of us are fed up with being fobbed off on the question of nuclear build. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, has just touched on the other point that I particularly wanted to make: our increasing dependence on supply from sources overseas. That is extremely worrying.
	I much enjoyed the knowledgeable maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan. He said that the Government had run out of places to hide. I echo that; a decision must be made quickly on nuclear build. I also enjoyed the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Goodlad, who called for clear policy options and better public understanding of the discussion about nuclear power. I agree with him. He also said—I do not quite agree with him on this—that renewables could supply only a small fraction of our needs. I agree that it is only a small amount, but it is to that sector that I shall address most of my remarks today. I shall focus on the part that non-food crops should play in meeting our future energy needs.
	We should have a broadly based energy supply. Microgeneration plants, combined heat and power units and the use of recycled waste will bring great benefits to local communities. I would especially like to see them developed locally for local communities. This week, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, Sir Ben Gill and his task force produced their report on biomass. It had 42 recommendations. In the foreword, Sir Ben noted that the energy White Paper of 2003 contained clear aspirations about renewable energy, security of supply, competitiveness and the reduction of fuel poverty. Additionally, the Government have important objectives for sustainable development and sustainable farming, forestry and woodland management.
	One third of primary energy is used for heat, but there is still a lack of recognition of the role that renewable heat sources could play in policy delivery. There is limited support for development in many cases. I quote the report:
	"So far as DTI's Energy White Paper is concerned there was a missed opportunity to develop targets for renewable heat and this has perpetuated an inconsistency of approach in Government and in the Regions".
	That is a damning indictment. Those of us who spent hours talking through the Energy Bill two years ago—it has been referred to—would recognise that frustration. We failed to convince the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that that Bill should include a wider remit and not just the biodiesel obligation that was included in the Bill at the last hour.
	Sir Ben's report suggests that around 1 million hectares of land could be available for non-food use. That could generate about 9 million tonnes of energy crops. Some 5 million to 6 million tonnes of wood waste are generated each year, and only 1.4 million tonnes were recovered in 2004. There are other potential sources. The potential for energy generation using waste materials in England is significant. Only 2.5 million tonnes of municipal solid waste are used for energy recovery; the majority, unfortunately, goes into landfill sites. That is unacceptable. Will the Government hasten proposals to establish an EU procedure under which processed waste products can be used in that way? Will the Minister tell me whether his department will respond to the report by Sir Ben's task force? If it does not, which department will?
	I return to biomass heating. I understand that the government estate contains 50,000 buildings. Are the Government considering possibilities for the public sector to increase the amount of investment in heat networks and in stand-alone biomass fuel boilers for heating, if necessary by a programme of positive preference? Task force recommendation 1 calls for the introduction of a single capital grant scheme to aid all biomass heating boilers and the heating element of combined heat and power biomass-fuelled plants. Clearly, for the industry to take off and become established, some form of financial aid is needed.
	We are all aware of the radical changes taking place within the farming industry. The introduction of the single farm payment, which decouples subsidy from the production of food, is a major change for the industry to undertake. I believe that we have a real opportunity to encourage a rapid growth on non-food crops and that sector in order to help with our future energy needs.
	In its briefing, the National Farmers Union raises three items that I wish to share. The first point is the obligatory inclusion of biofuels in the UK via the renewable transport fuel obligation, with clear target levels and dates corresponding with our EU targets. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I will remember well that there is an obligation, but that was passed by the Act last year. Here we are, 18 months on and no movement forward has taken place, unless the Minister can tell me to the contrary. Secondly, a single lead department and a strategy for biofuels as recommended by the EFRA committee in November 2003 should be established. The third point involves changes in planning guidance, incorporating renewable power, such as combined heat and power and district heating, into new large-scale developments such as those proposed by the ODPM and the English RDAs.
	I know that the sector of which I have spoken in great detail is but one small sector. I firmly believe that it has a part to play. Undoubtedly, the question that the Government have to answer, but have not yet answered, is whether we have future nuclear build.

Lord Greenway: My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, introduced the debate, she said that an awful lot of heavyweights would be speaking. I would never in a million years describe my noble friend Lord Hannay as a lightweight but I would certainly regard myself as one in this subject.
	Governments and world leaders love to bandy about grand words and intentions. One has only to go back to the Lisbon agreement—to make the EU the most competitive, dynamic and knowledge-driven economy by 2010. We are halfway there but not much has happened yet. However, one thing that any competitive economy needs is a reliable and reasonably priced supply of power. It is absolutely vital. Without it, a country begins the long, slow slope down towards being a third world power. Before turning to the main part of my speech, I should like to touch on a point that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, raised. It is a very important point although no one else has talked about it—the need to conserve energy. If every householder were properly educated—and here the Government have a task—we could cut down on the amount of energy that is wasted. It is a very important point which echoes our need for energy. I think that we can do a lot to reduce the amount of energy that we need to balance the equation.
	I was amused during the passage of the Energy Bill through this House last year to read that a Member of another place had described me as being in the pocket of the nuclear lobby. Quite how he divined that from my efforts to safeguard recognised sea lanes from encroachment by offshore wind farms, I do not know. To my knowledge I have never mentioned nuclear power in this House before. However, if I have ever been in the closet, perhaps I ought to come out of it. I firmly support what many noble Lords have said today. Nuclear power should form, for the foreseeable future, part of a balanced energy supply. It is time that nuclear power was looked on as a force for good rather than—as it generally is, with its weapons connotations—a force for evil.
	I turn to renewables, which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, also touched on. He is right: it is early days for renewables. However, as time goes on, we will be able to provide a very large part of our energy needs from renewable sources. I support the Government's laudable aims in their Kyoto obligations of providing 10 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2010. But we all know that targets are dangerous things. As a number of noble Lords have said, it is looking perhaps unlikely that we will reach that target. One has only to look back at the old Soviet empire and its targets. I am always reminded by that rather nice story—I am sure it is apocryphal—of the farmer on a collective farm who was told that his job for the day was to plough 100 miles. He went off at seven in the morning and ploughed a single furrow 50 miles in one direction and 50 miles back in the other direction. That did not help anyone.
	It would seem that the Government have backed wind farms as their means of meeting the target. Wind farms and wind energy are more or less the only horse in town as regards renewables at the moment. But there are alternatives. Before I go on to those, the Minister will not be surprised if I turn back to navigation and offshore wind farms, on which there were a couple of Questions recently. I worry that in their rush to meet targets, the Government will not so much turn a blind eye as perhaps try to get round the amendments which were built into the Energy Bill during its passage through this House to try to safeguard navigation and were strongly supported by the Transport Select Committee in another place. There is a danger here. We must not compromise maritime safety. We have just heard a lot about gas tankers. The thought of a gas tanker running amok in an offshore wind farm is too awful to contemplate.
	However, there is a ray of hope. In response to a Question last week, almost in passing, the Minister mentioned maritime clearways. That is something that I have proposed before and something that was used very successfully when North Sea oil exploration was beginning to get under way. Previously, all the departments and marine authorities got together and agreed certain routes where shipping generally went that would be sacrosanct and would not be impinged on by any development in the oil industry. It is not too late to look at that again with regard to the siting of future offshore wind farms.
	I also think that it is still not too late for the Government to look a lot more closely at some of the alternatives, which, I would argue, are perhaps more reliable than wind power. They have already been mentioned—tide and wave power, both of which commodities this country is very well blessed with.
	It is an interesting thought that it is estimated that there is enough energy in waves to supply twice the whole world's power needs. I am not suggesting for a moment that we will suddenly revolutionise things and get all our power from waves, but a great deal of research is going on. There are power buoys—buoys which bob up and down to create energy and electricity. There is the Pelamis system of linked tubes which float on the water. By their action as they go over the waves they create electricity. We also have the limpet system whereby waves roll into a cavern and the oscillating action of the waves runs a turbine. That has been tried out on the island of Islay, and I believe that a much larger scheme is to be built in the Faroe Islands. I did not know it, but apparently the Faroese are noted tunnellers. They feel that a much better way of approaching this is to build tunnels into the high cliffs and use the wave energy in that way.
	Tidal streams have been mentioned. Their great advantage is that they are regular and predictable. While we all know that the tide does not run 24 hours a day, it does for an awful lot of that time. The Severn Barrage was mentioned in an earlier intervention. In some ways I am rather sad about this, but the notion of a tidal barrage laid across the river Severn has been dropped on environmental grounds, due in part to the experience with the Rance tidal barrier in France, which is now well over 20 years old. However, there is still great potential for utilising tidal power, especially in areas like the Bristol Channel, which has one of the highest tidal rise and falls in the world.
	There is also the possibility of building tidal stream turbines, another aspect of tidal energy use that is being developed at the moment. Some people refer to these turbines as windmills—the wind turbines that we are now getting used to—and see them being almost inverted and stuck on to the sea bed, either as they are with a propeller on the top or, in another variation, with a wing coming off the main support to which are attached two propellers, thereby gaining power from the tide as it goes in and out. I think that those turbines will have huge potential in time to come.
	We also have tidal lagoons. Again, the Bristol Channel would be an obvious place in which to investigate their use. Rock dump walls are used to contain a volume of water and turbines are embedded in the walls in order to generate electricity as the tide comes in and goes out. Such schemes would not have the enormous environmental impact of a huge barrier. Tidal lagoons would have a great advantage over offshore wind farms and other schemes in that the power would not have to be transported inland from somewhere far out to sea. That is one of the great problems with power developed offshore. Moreover, it is reckoned that lagoons would take up an area of only 5 per cent of that required by the first round of wind farms.
	In time we shall see schemes of this kind coming in far more, and perhaps more than wind power. The Government should look at them much more seriously and they should invest funds in their development.
	Looking further ahead into the very long term, there is also the possibility of utilising the temperature difference between the thermal layers of the oceans. People are already investigating this possibility. As I said earlier, while renewables may be small beer at the moment and for the time being will produce only part of our power requirements, in time to come it is possible that we shall see them providing an awful lot more. I have already mentioned the Bristol Channel, but we need only look at the race between the island of Alderney and the mainland of France. Some of the strongest tides in the world are experienced there. A huge body of water effectively roars through the gap four times a day. I do not believe that it is beyond the bounds of possibility for engineers to come up with a means of tethering some propeller-driven pylons across that gap. That would bring in huge amounts of power.
	In conclusion, I echo the noble Baroness who introduced this important debate by saying that the subject of our future energy supplies needs to be fast-tracked. We need to see clear policy in place across all government departments. We also need to review the planning and consent framework, as well as to investigate the introduction of a new grid suitable for distributing renewables with fair access to all.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, there are all sorts of reasons why the subjects for Thursday debates are chosen—I nearly said Wednesday, but I must not be too old-fashioned in your Lordships' House—and there is no doubt from the speeches we have heard from all around the House that my noble friend has picked this subject because of the frustration of noble Lords with the answers that we have been given by the Government over recent months and even years on the subject of our future energy supplies. Some three events that have taken place over the past 10 days exemplify this.
	The first was one that the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, will recall. On Thursday last the Minister answered a Question on offshore wind farms, just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. The exchange quickly degenerated—it need not have done; I am sure that it was the Minister's choice—down to the subject of alternative energy as a whole. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, asked the Minister a question based on the report, The State of the Nation, produced by the Institution of Civil Engineers. Among other things it states that the Government's target of 10 per cent electricity generation from renewables by 2010 was likely to turn out to be something between 5 and 7 per cent. This is not the first time that the institute has said this; I think the claim now goes back through three successive reports. However, the Minister chose to rubbish the suggestion by saying that he had asked the civil engineers, both "in the House and elsewhere", to give him,
	"the facts and figures on which they based that judgment".
	He went on to say that, "it is perfectly possible"—do I detect an element of doubt here?—
	"that we will achieve the 10 per cent target or something close to it".—[Official Report, 20/10/05; col. 880.]
	Like other noble Lords, I found that a somewhat difficult answer. I was about to use a much ruder word, but I shall not do so. But I was lucky enough to be able to ask the Minister whether, in view of his statement, we should believe the Government's assertion that the 10 per cent target by 2010 would indeed be met. In other words, on what do the Government base their belief that the target will be met?
	I was given the most surprising reply. Rather than respond to the question, the Minister chose to explain the reasons for his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. He stated:
	"My Lords, the question is whether figures are being produced that set out a case. If you are going to say that something is impossible to do, you have to give reasons and explanations, particularly if you are an engineer. You have to say, 'Well, there are these reasons why we cannot build at this speed. We cannot get planning permission', or there may be other problems. Merely asserting that you do not think that it is possible is not sufficient, if your judgment is to have credibility".—[Official Report, 20/10/05; col. 881.]
	What is the difference between the Minister's attitude to the ICE report and the attitude adopted by myself and, I assume, other noble Lords to what the Government have asserted?
	Secondly, and more important, is that the Minister has himself been making assertions that the target—or as he said so revealingly, "something near it"—will be met. Can he back that up with the facts which he says he has asked the Institution of Civil Engineers to produce or will he admit that it is just as much a gut feeling one way as the institution's is in another?
	I am glad that the noble Lord is in his place because I should like to turn now—

Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, before my noble friend moves on, does he recollect that when the new Ministers came into the department after the election, they were very firmly advised by Joan MacNaughton, the head of the Energy Group, that there was no chance of meeting either the renewables or the emissions targets and that they needed to make urgent decisions on other matters?

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that. It is another reason for the frustration in the background of this debate.
	I was about to turn to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, who of course is a comparatively new Minister in your Lordships' House. We are delighted to have him. But only this week there was an occasion when I believe that he missed a trick. He was talking about the 2003 energy White Paper and said that although coal is twice as carbon intensive per megawatt hour as gas, that tendency will be ameliorated and offset by the UK's participation in the EU's emissions trading scheme. He may or may not be right about that, as we will discover, but the Government have chosen a very strange way of operating it by taxing emissions, on the one hand, and handing it back as a tax credit on the other, making it not quite tax neutral but certainly a great deal less expensive for high energy using firms than it otherwise would be. Surely the way to ameliorate the generation deficit is to persuade people to use less.
	When the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, gave that answer it happened to be on the first day of Energy Saving Week. As energy saving was very much part of the 2003 White Paper, that is why I say he missed a trick. Is it true, for example, that if we all turned off mobile phone chargers when they are not charging phones, consumers in this country would save £46 million a year? What is that in carbon emission savings? There must be some saving; there may even be quite a lot.
	There is inevitably a certain camaraderie between Whips and ex-Whips. Therefore, it is not fair to criticise the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, for telling us that we had not three days' reserves—as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, told us—but 11 days' reserves of gas, giving the impression that that covered both domestic and industrial use. After all, I know only too well that Whips will very rarely depart from their brief. However, I can, and do, criticise his brief—especially now that the Energy Minister, Mr Wicks, has said that the risk of power cuts to business this year is virtually unquantifiable. According to the Financial Times, he has admitted that he has no idea how bad the gas shortages might be, but he attacks business for what he calls "talking up" a crisis. To follow a thought of my noble friend Lady O'Cathain, if the weathermen are to be believed, we are in for an unusually cold winter. Is not the Minister therefore "talking down" a crisis?
	What can be done about this that cannot be done in a hurry? Noble Lords on all sides of the House, with much more experience of these matters than I, will—and have during this debate—offered suggestions to the Government. For the longer term, the obvious answer is the nuclear option—I side with all those who believe in that—which the Government have resisted for so long. Noble Lords on all sides of the House have been telling them for years to stop sitting on the fence. Of course there is a political risk, but governments are elected to govern, not to hide in the corner.
	Again, almost 5.5 million tonnes of wood are thrown into landfill sites every year. What a waste when it could be burnt, so becoming carbon neutral, or composted with other waste, such as the horticultural and agricultural crops so beloved of my noble friend Lady Byford. This would produce usable methane which could be burnt to produce electricity. We certainly should not let landfill sites vent methane, which is just as dangerous a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.
	In the past, we have heard a great deal in this House about the "desulphurisation" and "gasification" of coal. Has that come to a grinding halt? Is the current phrase "carbon saving"? I do not know the answer but I would very much like to. We may no longer produce enough of our own coal, but surely to goodness it is safer to import than gas and oil which come from much more unstable parts of the world, as has been pointed out several times today. It also has a much less dodgy transport infrastructure.
	I believe that the Government are just beginning to try a little harder to cure our energy deficit. The Minister for Energy is at last talking about eliminating the carbon tax on nuclear and other non-fossil fuels which currently attract it. That is all very well, but will the Chancellor, in a slumping economy, allow it? We are told that this autumn's public expenditure round will be the most difficult that this Government have faced in their eight years in office.
	Under today's rules and regulations it takes something like 12 years from the decision to go ahead until electricity is produced at a power station. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill—whose speech we all enjoyed enormously—that he will need to persuade his own Government to relax the planning regulations in order to achieve the faster time scale that he believes is possible. Even if we were to start today, the 2010 target would be well past and the 2020 target fast approaching. We are supposed to be looking at the long term. Have we not heard enough today of 2010 and should we not be thinking of 2020?

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I add my name to the list of speakers who have preceded me in thanking my noble friend Lady O'Cathain for opening this debate today. It was she who remarked that this is the first of two interesting debates in the House this autumn, the second one standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, on the subject of global warming. The two subjects are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. This debate, in a sense, is a part of that debate, and that debate, in a sense—although it is two weeks' later—must inevitably be a part of this debate.
	If there is to be a solution to the problem of global warming, it will be found in the decisions that are taken in the energy field. The noble Lord, Lord Flowers, remarked to me many years ago, when we were serving together on the Science and Technology Committee, that mankind had only one source of energy, and that was derived from nuclear power. He went on to say that nowadays we have a choice between a nuclear reactor 98 million miles away and building our own. We are all inclined to forget that the mineral hydrocarbon fuels that we so carelessly squander today are the product of energy from that distant nuclear reactor; millions of years of sunlight, acting by photosynthesis, fixing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and depositing it as rotting vegetation. It has then taken hundreds of millions of years of geological time to transform that vegetable product into the hydrocarbon fuels we are familiar with today. Now we seem to be intent on using up as much of it as we can and returning the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in the short space of two or three centuries. Is it any wonder that the climate is reacting?
	The Motion itself calls for early decisions and, given the problems that we have heard about today and the difficulties of the planning process, which many noble Lords have mentioned, it cannot be considered to be a contentious one. However, the decisions themselves are another matter. Of course they have to be taken in different and usually difficult circumstances. The pressures on decision takers can be conflicting and are often mutually opposing. Short-term considerations prejudice long-term needs; consumer interests oppose producer interests. The huge mass of investment that is committed to the existing development and supply of energy to communities across the world creates an inertia and obstacle that makes investment in the new technologies necessary to reduce emissions more difficult to obtain on a competitive basis. Behind all that lies the malign influence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has an income stream to protect because he is defending money that he has already committed to spend.
	The Minister's right honourable friend the Prime Minister has set himself up to lead the world in solving the problem of global warming, describing it as a matter which is probably the most important issue facing mankind. A growing global economy requires additional energy input which, in turn, will raise CO2 emissions for as long as we rely on mineral hydrocarbons as our main fuel source. It seems to me that if we aspire to lead the world in finding a solution to this difficulty, we should be leading the world in research into reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere; leading the world in creating systems that produce CO2-free energy technologies or reduce CO2 emissions; and leading the world in creating administrative structures which will encourage these processes.
	How do we shape up? I am afraid that the answer to that question is a depressing one. Typical is the matter of biofuels, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Byford. It is almost two years since this House had a biofuels obligation written into the Energy Act. The relevant section, of course, was to be implemented by order, and order came there none. Many of our European neighbours, and countries such as Brazil and the United States, are far ahead of us. If I wish to find out about technological developments that will diminish the need to use mineral hydrocarbons in the future, I will have a much more interesting time if I look at the research programmes undertaken by the Department of Energy in the United States than if I seek information in this country.
	The same applies to developments relating to the hydrogen economy. If I want to find administrative structures that encourage domestic generation of electricity from wind or photo-electrics, I look on the European mainland rather than here. I recognise that we have a small programme of financial support which has been helping to develop these two aspects, but that is about to run out and so far, we have heard nothing about what is to happen in the future. Will the Minister respond to that in his reply?
	What have we done to clear the planning log-jam that bedevils the achievement of developments that are essential if we are to make our energy systems more efficient, more competitive and less environmentally damaging? We need more than studies; we need decisions, if we are to hold our heads up internationally. Why be afraid of them?
	I understand the problems that are involved when decisions commit scarce government resources. But we do not seem able even to take administrative decisions which have no direct cost in themselves. Why not change planning guidance to permit major new electricity generating capacity to be developed in reasonable proximity to major urban areas, enabling them more easily to supply heat to the community that at present goes to waste? Seventy per cent of domestic energy demand is for heating, and something like 60 per cent of the energy input in power generation is discharged to the atmosphere.
	Why not change the general development order to permit houses to install photo-electrics or wind generators, say up to 5 kilowatt capacity per house, and then make any surplus power generated saleable to the grid if it is more than the house can consume? Of course these matters are controversial, but procrastination simply defers and worsens the problem that we all face.
	I recognise that actually doing things will have costs if there is to be any effect in the end, and it is the public who pay. However, studies of the costs of the consequences of global warming suggest that they may well be greater than the costs of tackling the problem. An interesting example is the Thames barrage, which protects London from tidal surges. When constructed, it was expected to be raised perhaps once a year. At present, it is raised between five and six times a year, and it is expected to become inadequate altogether within about 30 years. The cost of raising the level of protection for the future is considerably less than the cost of any damage likely to be done if that barrage is seriously overtopped. That is widely recognised. There is a wide awareness and concern among the public about the issue, but they feel helpless, uninvolved and unable to assist. Lack of government decisiveness suggests to most people that the problem is not urgent. Some of these changes might help to overcome their scepticism, persuading them that the Government really are concerned. We might begin the process of transforming public attitudes and the way we approach energy matters.
	I came across a quotation from Winston Churchill criticising the government in the 1930s when they were faced with a different sort of crisis. It describes that government's lack of decision with clinical precision, saying:
	"They go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved only to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent".
	There is nothing more to say.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the European Energy and Transport Forum, a European Commission-organised group of what they call experts—I do not think I am one of those, but I am pleased to be on it.
	We have heard a lot today from noble Lords about the need for diversity of supply of different fuels, different origins, whether we should stick with current technologies or go with future development and the safety of all the processes. With regard to the problems of getting rid of nuclear waste safely, which I see as an essential prerequisite to any more nuclear, I do not know whether it is ahead or behind of the clean coal technology, which I understand is being trialled in the United States, but they are both technologies which I suggest are not quite there yet.
	I do not think that quite enough has been made of the potential for coal in the medium term. I know this is a debate about the long term, but we have to get through the next 10 years yet. We are importing incredibly high volumes of coal, but enormous volumes of coal are available around the world, much more than oil or gas. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said we have a dodgy transport system. I am sorry he is not in his place—perhaps I should have intervened earlier—but I do not think we have. As chairman of the Rail Freight Group, I can tell the House that we are carrying more than 50 million tonnes per annum of coal from ports, opencast sites and mines to power stations. We expect to take more, because we are burning coal to keep the lights on, and that is fine.
	However, one element may not have been covered today as much as it could have been. I refer to reducing demand. The Energy Commissioner in 2001, Loyola de Palacio, was a nuclear enthusiast. She said that one of the first pillars of energy security is conservation. If you burn less, you need less—it is so obvious.
	The Government have been quite successful in some of their new building regulations and in exceeding their energy-saving forecasts. But a great deal more could be done. Many noble Lords have made suggestions: we keep on hearing about turning lights off in government buildings overnight, and so on. More seriously, the new energy standards for buildings will make quite a significant improvement in the amount of energy we waste by pumping it into the atmosphere, to such an extent that the Association for the Conservation of Energy is quoted as saying that it needs better targets. It states that the Government need to give it better energy-saving targets because it has already complied with the first set. It needs the incentive to go further. That is one of the major successes of the Government, but it needs to be continued.
	Another way in which we could save energy emerged from a report produced by the European Energy and Transport Forum earlier this year on the problem of short-haul air flights. We can talk about their cost and the pollution that they cause, but they also consume an enormous amount of energy. The reported stated that if 10 per cent of travellers in Europe used high-speed trains rather than aircraft, the amount of energy expended would be reduced by somewhere between 20 and 100 times. The reduction for air freight would be even greater. That needs a policy at European level, because we cannot do this on our own.
	As other noble Lords have said, the idea of emissions trading is just scratching at the margins; it will not achieve anything. The report of the European Energy and Transport Forum suggested that the external cost of aviation, which should be added to every fare within Europe, should be around €52 per 1,000 passenger kilometres, which is not very much. If one can accept that it is not really economic to fly to Bilbao for £10, as I intend to do in two weeks, proper charging is needed. It would reduce demand and thereby consumption.
	So a lot can be done on air travel. I conclude by quoting some comments made by the current EU Energy Commissioner, Mr Piebalgs, at a conference in Amsterdam earlier this year. He said:
	"The Green Paper sets out an ambitious goal and starts from the assumption that by 2020 we can save 20% of our current energy consumption in the European Union, in a cost-effective way".
	This is in the context of the EU 10 having now joined us. If any noble Lord has visited those countries, as I have recently, he will see that they are very different from the old EU 15 in terms of the challenges and the problems they face and their lack of investment. The commissioner further stated, absolutely rightly:
	"The cheapest, most competitive, cleanest and most secure form of energy for the European Union thus remains saved energy".
	He said that he wanted to see a consistent policy across the European Union and that half of the 20 per cent potential could be realised if the correct legislation, such as the buildings directive and the draft directive on energy services, were adopted by the member states. We have a terrible record of grudgingly accepting directives and trying for as long as possible not to implement them if we do not like the look of them.
	I agree with the commissioner that action on energy efficiency to reduce waste will save scarce resources and strengthen our security of supply. I urge the Government to work very closely with the Commission and other member states to make this policy work, because it is much easier to save energy than to find all the new sources that we have been talking about with such enthusiasm.

The Earl of Liverpool: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lady O'Cathain for making it possible for us to debate this important subject today. With oil prices of around $60 a barrel and our supplies of North Sea oil and gas fast diminishing, her timing could not be better.
	It behoves me to come clean straightaway in such an august gathering of Members who are largely pro-nuclear power, and to admit that I am not too keen on nuclear fission but very keen on nuclear fusion. Very little has been said about nuclear fusion. My noble friend Lord Goodlad referred to it in his excellent maiden speech, saying that it was still very much in its infancy. I would have to agree with that, but it is still surely one of our great hopes for the future.
	Exciting progress is being made at Culham with a new tokamac called MAST, which stands for Mega Amp Spherical Tokamac. It is an experimental but successful unit, and a larger model is on the drawing board. Will the Minister inform the House how long we may have to wait for a fully operational model to come on stream?
	One of the great benefits which would accrue from developing this new energy source is that there would be no nuclear waste to deal with. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked whether the factor of nuclear waste should really be the show-stopper. I tend to think that it should be. According to the Nirex inventory of 2001, 92,000 cubic metres of high, medium and low-level toxic waste were then in storage in 34 locations around the country. It predicted that even if no new nuclear power stations were built, the volume of waste was set to increase fivefold in the next 100 years. No solution has been found so far, although 15 or so possible sites have been identified. Nobody knows with any certainty the safest way to deal with this problem waste, which has a toxic shelf life between 5,000 and—some people say—500,000 years. Five thousand years is enough: it is an awfully long time. Geologically safe, deep, underground storage sites seem to be the most likely storage solution, but how safe is safe? What a legacy that is for our children and future generations.
	I shall look today at other safer, greener solutions. Wind power certainly has a role to play, but far more support and encouragement should be given by the Government to other potential power sources. The first example on my list is tidal power, which was described in some detail by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. I am not in favour of tidal barrages, but I am in favour of tidal lagoons. Tidal Electric Ltd has been trying for some considerable time to find favour with the Government and to secure the financial resources to build a tidal lagoon in the Swansea Bay area. I believe that the Department for Trade and Industry is familiar with this project and I hope that I am right in saying that it is receiving increasing support in that quarter. Will the Minister confirm that that is the case?
	Tidal power really is something that we should seriously consider in this country. We have the second-largest tidal ranges in the world around our shores. Unlike the wind, the tides are completely predictable. They are guaranteed to perform 365 days a year, twice a day—or four times if one made use of them as they came in and went out. Tidal power would enable output to the national grid to be predicted with great accuracy and well into the future. I am told that seven other possible tidal lagoon sites around our coastline could be efficient. If and—I hope—when those lagoons are commissioned, they could meet 10 per cent of energy needs. Importantly, they are environmentally benign, with no threat to marine ecology.
	But our salvation does not lie entirely in tidal lagoons. There are many other possible sources of green power. Tidal stream turbines were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, and I shall not go further than to commend his remarks to the House. Then there is wave power, which is fast developing. Solar panels are becoming more efficient and less expensive; biofuels and biomass have an important role to play; geothermal can play its part; and CHP—combined heat and power—which some noble Lords have mentioned, although not entirely carbon-neutral needs to be given every encouragement to develop. Taken in the round, some reputable scientists even say that, if we were so inclined to use all renewable sources available to us, we could produce 300 per cent of our current requirement. That is something to think about—and chimes in well with some of the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer.
	I turn to the subject of energy conservation, which the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Whitty, and a number of other noble Lords mentioned. Therein lie great possibilities for solving our problems. The government energy White Paper stated:
	"The cheapest, cleanest and safest way of addressing our energy policy objectives is to use less energy".
	So far, so good. The White Paper went on to set firm targets for CHP and an aspirational target for renewables, but sadly failed to give any target for energy efficiency, even though the report states that savings of 5 megatonnes could come from domestic energy efficiency by 2010. That would represent a 20 per cent efficiency improvement. Some noble Lords have asked whether there is any chance of us being on track to make those savings—and I join them in asking that question.
	Finally, a particular bête noire of mine is light pollution in our large cities. A phenomenal amount of light is emitted, and I cannot believe that it could not be substantially reduced, if the will was there. It sets such a bad example to our fellow countrymen, when we are trying to persuade them to conserve and save energy.

Lord Haworth: My Lords, I join in the congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, on initiating this important debate. I extend my congratulations to the two maiden speakers, the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and my noble friend Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, who made one of the most robust and interesting maiden speeches that I have heard in my short time in this House.
	In preparing for this debate, I was struck by a phrase which crops up on the first page of the report of the Environmental and Rural Development Committee of the Scottish Parliament on Climate Change. The phrase was:
	"If we go for business as usual . . . we are destined for something unimaginable".
	The original source of that phrase was the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. The report continues by saying:
	"Stabilisation of the climate at tolerable levels of change requires at least a 60 per cent reduction in 1990 CO2 emission levels by 2050".
	I am glad that the Government, in principle, seek to be "on the path"—I think the phrase is—to achieving that.
	The Minister may recall confirming what I put to him on a previous occasion when discussing similar issues—namely, that on a "business as usual" basis, without a dramatic change of policy, by 2020 there will have been no decrease in the percentage of our electricity being generated from fossil fuels. That is even if we manage to achieve the ambitious target of 20 per cent of our electricity supply coming from renewables by that date.
	At present, roughly 20 per cent of our electricity comes from nuclear power on a UK basis. Interestingly, it is almost twice that figure in Scotland, though the report to the Scottish Parliament barely mentions nuclear power. However, by 2023 all bar one of Britain's nuclear power stations are set to close. Over the same time frame, the currently very modest level of renewable energy is targeted to rise, to take its place—not to deplete fossil fuel use. So unless there is a change of policy, almost 80 per cent of our electricity generation is set to remain coming from carbon sources.
	As I said in my maiden speech in your Lordships' House, I strongly believe that a decision is overdue to reassert the importance of nuclear power in our overall energy mix. In France, some 80 per cent of electricity is produced from nuclear, and an additional 10 per cent or so comes from other carbon-free sources, mostly hydro-power. The French seem rightly proud of this; every French household is provided with this information by Electricité de France on every electricity bill.
	Decisions will have to be taken soon—in the lifetime of this Parliament—on new generating capacity. For two decades or more there have been very few major new investments in capacity, and old plants cannot have their lives prolonged indefinitely. The time lag to bring new capacity on stream, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned, is likely to be several years, with delays being imposed by the rigours of the planning consent processes. So the initiation of the development of fresh capacity becomes an increasingly urgent problem, as many commentators are rightly emphasising.
	Of course there are issues which have to be addressed, the long-term treatment and disposal of nuclear waste being not the least. The findings of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, when it reports, will probably be controversial. I am assuming that the committee will recommend burying the waste in carefully engineered sites in areas of geological stability. But wherever that might be, it is unlikely to be greeted by brass bands locally. By the way, may I ask if anyone in Government is taking up Bob Hawke's idea of the middle of the Australian desert becoming an international nuclear waste disposal facility? It sounds a very interesting idea. I hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, might still be in his place, or might have referred to that in his maiden speech, as he has just returned from Australia; but perhaps that would have been too controversial.
	One should not treat this subject too light-heartedly because, sooner or later, a decision about disposal there will have to be. That would still be true even if the nuclear programme were not restarted, because of the increasing amount of high-level waste being generated from the plants which are operating now, or are being decommissioned. However, the development of a fresh generation of nuclear plants does not change the nature of the problem. Nuclear waste is here to stay and must be dealt with. The volume of it is not really the issue. While thinking of international solutions, perhaps there is an opportunity for closer co-operation within the European Union on these matters. France and Finland face the issue, as well as us.
	Cost is an issue too. Unlike in the very early days, no one now pretends that nuclear power is "free". However, as the recent research conducted for the Engineering Employers' Federation appears to have shown, nuclear power will be competitive if gas and carbon prices are high. Who would now want to bet on the future security of supply of cheap fossil fuels? Those days are surely over. Energy efficiency is important—that is not denied. It has been estimated that up to half the 60 per cent CO2 reduction target could be achieved cost-effectively by improving energy efficiency. It could be, perhaps, but whether it will be is much more doubtful. Some energy-saving measures actually serve to stimulate domestic consumption. Some of the more outlandish claims made for carbon reductions from energy efficiency are unlikely to prove as effective as their proponents—me included—want.
	Surely the biggest issue which should impinge on the mind of the Government in conducting their welcome review of energy policy ought to be the question of greenhouse gasses and climate change. What the Government could do is set a zero or near-zero carbon obligation on energy providers and, consistent with being satisfied that there is security of supply, let the market determine the exact balance between the competing no-carbon sources. At the end of the review, the Government must take a clear lead on this issue, to create—to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, at the Anglo-Norwegian Conference—
	"a stable fiscal and regulatory environment",
	which will encourage the absolutely necessary investment in future green energy sources.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I am not surprised that my noble friend Lady O'Cathain chose this subject. In her successful professional life, she has always been someone who has demanded action and results, so I can understand her impatience—indeed, I share it.
	Let us go back to basics for a moment. First, on present trends, there will be a world shortage of energy. We do not know when the lights will go out—they may even flicker for a while this winter—but my guess is that, without a huge change in government policy, the lights will go out for a serious period of time within the next decade. Secondly, the way we are using energy today is polluting the world, and is likely to screw up our climate, if not in our lifetime, certainly in the lifetime of our grandchildren.
	There are two solutions. First, we must recognise that, in the long term, hydrocarbons, particularly oil, are too precious to be used for the generation of electricity. In an age of terrorism, an age that is likely to last decades rather than years, the supply of hydrocarbons is too uncertain, and the prices are likely to be too high for safety or comfort. Secondly, we must take urgent steps to supply more energy from non-polluting renewables. I agree with my noble friend Lord Wakeham when he indicated that it is unlikely that demand for energy will fall. Governments would be unwise, for example, to seek to persuade those people now enjoying cheap air travel to be taxed out of their aeroplane seats.
	We have to face the fact that the only non-polluting source that can hope to fill the gap is nuclear power. Hydro-power is ideal in every way, but it has been fully exploited, and the scope for much expansion there is limited. Tidal power, referred to by my noble friend Lord Liverpool, is a lovely idea but is at an embryonic stage, and I think he will admit that. Wind power, in my opinion, should be virtually a non-starter in our thinking. The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, mentioned the staggering figure—the Government's own figure, in their response to a Parliamentary Question of March this year—of a £30 billion subsidy for wind power between now and 2020. With its hugely high cost, inevitably low and intermittent output and often unacceptable visible intrusion into most of our windy and most beautiful landscapes, it should never have been given the priority and favour this Government have given it. Frankly, Mr Prescott's wind power is pure political tokenism.
	For this Government, whom I have always supported in so many areas of policy, I am afraid political tokenism seems increasingly to be the first refuge in the face of awkward pressures from extreme lobby groups. We had a spectacular example of that this week when we in this House overwhelmingly rejected the Government's Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
	Unfortunately, we have in front of us today no specific proposal that we can either accept or reject. All we can do is debate, and thus seek to influence both the Government and the wider public. Sir Crispin Tickell, who probably started to study climate as early as anyone—about 25 years ago, I think, when he had a sabbatical from the Foreign Office at Harvard—said, in a recent address to the OECD:
	"To take Britain alone, there is little prospect of the Government meeting its energy targets between now and the middle of the century without ... recourse to nuclear power".
	There are three basic considerations for nuclear power—first, safe reactors; secondly, safe disposal of the waste; and thirdly, economic performance, having taken into account the full costs including eventual decommissioning. I am satisfied on those three. There is another crucial message we have got to get over, however—that the time has come to recognise that nuclear power is itself a renewable. I say this because, with the advance of reprocessing technology, and the fact that the supply of uranium for nuclear power is in practice inexhaustible for the foreseeable future, it is probably in a better state than the forecasts for oil supplies were a century ago. Nuclear should be seen as a renewable.
	Why is it so hard to persuade the Government and the anti-nuclear lobbies, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, to accept the need for more nuclear power? I believe it lies deep in the psyche of those whose inclinations were, more than a generation ago, to support the CND movement, because as socialists in those days they fundamentally and uncritically supported the cause of Russia against the wicked American capitalists, whom they saw as threatening the great Soviet experiment. History has proved how wrong they were. These atavistic attitudes are hard to remove. After all, it is only 10 years ago that the Labour Party finally removed Clause IV from its constitution. Today new Labour is a very different animal, and I salute it.
	I wish I could say the same about the Liberal Democrats. As we have heard once again today, most of their present leadership are opponents of nuclear power. Nuclear power is the Clause IV of the Liberal Democrats, and I suppose it is because they have no prospect of political office that they cannot face up to the need to scrap it.
	If we accept that nuclear is an economical non-polluting renewable, then let us embark as soon as possible on a massive programme of nuclear build. There is no time to lose. After all, nine of our 12 nuclear power stations are due to be decommissioned within the next 10 years. The Prime Minister has given indications that he would like to press ahead with nuclear power, but he has opponents inside the Cabinet. It is said that one of the most uncompromising is Mrs Beckett. Quite frankly, if she is an obstacle, the obstacle should be removed.
	I have one bit of friendly advice for the Prime Minister. Many years ago I was sent to America to carry the bags of the late Ernest Marples when he was studying American technology. One of the people we went to see was Robert McNamara, the Defence Secretary, who made an interesting comment along the lines of: "Our American political system has a big advantage over yours in Britain. In Britain, your Prime Minister is always seeking re-election. In the United States, once the President has won a first term, he knows he can have only a second term. He therefore uses up his political power".
	Fortunately for the Prime Minister, he is now in the position of an American president who has won a second term. He has said he will go in three or four years' time, so let him ignore the extreme lobbies and do what is right for the country.
	Where is the money to come from? Not, I think, from the taxpayer, or even through joint public-private financial initiatives. I believe it is the big oil companies who should expand themselves into true energy companies, and use their massive financial resources to build nuclear. For this they need certain assurances from the Government. They need to know they will not have to suffer the delays and costs of overlong public inquiries, such as the one that delayed Sizewell B, near where I live. Incidentally, Sizewell B has considerable local support, and produces electricity equivalent to the supply from 600 wind turbines, although that supply is intermittent.
	I yield to no-one in my respect for the British planning system. It was one of the two great achievements of the post-war Attlee government, the other of course being the National Health Service. When it comes to trying to construct something like a nuclear power station, however, we should perhaps look at how the French have managed it. This debate has focused on one of the most important problems and challenges that this country, and the world, faces. I hope the Government can rise to that challenge.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am nearly one of the most junior Members on these Benches, a mere bantamweight, and generally I speak late during these debates. It is a good position, because at this stage nearly everything has been said, and I agree with nearly all of it. The exception, of course, is the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who carefully delivered her interesting and important speech wearing her smartest sandals. I may also have to have a chat later on with my noble friend Lord Liverpool about nuclear waste disposal options.
	The noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, in his excellent and informative maiden speech talked about the costing of nuclear power. Accurate costings are needed to reduce uncertainties, in particular the cost of nuclear waste disposal. That is a major uncertainty and a deterrent to new build. I believe that decommissioning and waste disposal costs of new build must be securitised, at least to some extent, in order for politicians and the public to have confidence in developers' plans. Unfortunately, in the eight or nine years since the Sellafield rock characterisation facility planning problem arose, the Government have made snail-like progress. That is despite the 1999 Select Committee report of your Lordships' House and despite the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, admitting to me at the Dispatch Box that there was no viable alternative for nuclear waste disposal other than a geological one.
	All noble Lords listened with care to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs. He remarked that it was important not to confuse new build with finding a solution for the waste problem. Of course, he is right but I have an anxiety: I believe that it is vital that the decision process is consecutive, with waste first, and not concurrent. The reasons are to facilitate accurate project costs, to facilitate the securitisation of those costs, and to secure public support for new build, and, most importantly, to force the public to wake up to the perils identified by noble Lords today and discard the Greenpeace approach of leaving the waste on the surface vulnerable to interference or even a breakdown in society, which I think is an understated risk, and, most cunningly, a reason why you cannot have new build. I fear that we have already left it too late to decide these matters consecutively or even in time.
	My noble friend Lord Goodlad in his excellent maiden speech talked about removing the mystery of nuclear power, simplifying the issues and providing the public with what he called unvarnished facts and clear policy options. My noble friend must have recently read the 1999 Select Committee report which identified the importance of public education in the matter of nuclear waste. I believe that we must start a period of intense public education now and for at least 18 months' duration—and not a quick and dirty three months so-called "consultation" shortly after a winter blackout. In order to give some comfort to my noble friend Lord Liverpool it is worth pointing out that the 1999 Select Committee considered that the arrival of the next ice age was geologically imminent, but I am convinced that phased deep geological depository is the answer.
	Finally, I had a "pop" at the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. She correctly identified that CO2 emissions from transport operations are a major source of CO2 pollution. In aviation I believe that we are stuck with liquid hydrocarbon fuels for the foreseeable future. However, for land systems, particularly private individual transport, in the long term—and that is what my noble friend's debate is about—we should be looking at hybrid or hydrogen power systems. But both would vastly increase the demand for electricity, and how would that be met without either nuclear power or continuing high levels of CO2 emissions related to transport operations?

Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness for initiating this debate. She was not sure what was the collective noun for ostriches. Having worked with ostriches, I can tell the noble Baroness that it is not a flock of ostriches, but a pride. The noble Baroness described the Government as ostriches, which put their heads in the sand. The collective noun for owls is a parliament—a parliament of owls. That is a useless piece of information but one that it is fun to start a speech with. I was about to say that this had been a focused debate that had imparted a great deal of information.
	A number of questions have been asked of the Minister but I have one question for him, the answer to which would help all Members of this House, especially as regards future debates on this matter. Many of us have come across this problem when we have tabled Questions; namely, that it is almost impossible to work out which Minister will answer them. We do not know whether it will be a Minister from the DTI or Defra or whether it will be someone who happens to be walking down the corridor at the time. I say that with no animosity to the Minister or to those on the Government Front Bench. However, if there are to be blackouts this winter, or the threat of a potential interruption in supply, perhaps it is time that we review our outlook on energy supply and look towards a source that is low cost and plentiful. We should reinstitute a Cabinet position for the Department of Energy. It seems almost impossible to talk about long-term energy supply and strategy without having a department of energy. However, in saying that I do not intend to denigrate the work of the DTI or Defra.
	We have heard two excellent maiden speeches today. Noble Lords who left the Chamber while the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, was making his maiden speech did not intend him any discourtesy—the noble Lord is not present at the moment—they were unaware that it was his maiden speech as that was not indicated on the list of speakers. We have raised that matter with the Government Whips Office. The maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, shows that some noble Lords who have recently joined the House have a great deal more experience than some of us who have been here for many years.
	This debate could have been retitled as a debate about nuclear energy. However, the real issue concerns the costs and implications of our energy policy. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, pointed out that in the future the issue will not be cost itself, but cost to the environment. While we discussed the relative costs of nuclear, renewables and gas, the real issue is a stark one. It was forecast that today would be one of the hottest on record for this country at this time of year. Perhaps that has something to do with climate change. However, the hurricanes in America have been attributed to climate change. Those hurricanes have caused tens of billions of dollars of damage. We must not underestimate that cost in the long term.
	It is clear that there is no simple or single solution to the energy problem. My noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer—she apologises profusely to the House that she has been called away from the Chamber—said that our policy leans towards renewables. However, it would not permit us to shut down the nuclear power stations today or even in the next few years. I believe that we all realise we have to consider a basket of energy solutions. That constitutes one of the major problems because no single energy solution provides all the answers without any attendant problems.
	Many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said that one way to deal with our energy supply problem was to reduce our consumption. It seems incredible that we keep on talking about excess consumption. Consumption has grown since 1990 by 20 per cent. That must be led by our lifestyle choice and consumer demand. Everyone has a role in reducing consumption at an individual level, for example, by changing the kind of light bulbs that we use. How many noble Lords have left their computer monitors or printers on over a weekend? Judging from what I have seen in many offices that seems to be a habit in this House. I commend the work of the Carbon Trust which is doing a great deal to reduce costs to business. It aims to reduce the amount of carbon that is emitted. The Government have also introduced legislation in that area. I hope that the Government will consider introducing further legislation in that regard.
	I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his appointment as chair of the Combined Heat and Power Association. He highlighted one major problem; we have instituted meters that do not go backwards. It is almost impossible to envisage a realistic role for microgeneration if the excess supply in your own house cannot be fed back on to the Grid. I introduced a Private Member's Bill last Session on that. After hearing some of the speeches, I think that I will reintroduce it forthwith in this Session, because it must be addressed.
	The issue also goes through to the European level. It will take European legislation and regulation to start looking at some of the interesting technical solutions that could be introduced, such as technology in fridges so that if the power supply on the Grid fluctuated 10 million fridges would turn themselves off for five minutes. That would have an amazing effect on reducing the stand-by capacity that the Grid has at the moment. The Grid is currently generating 10 per cent of its power just to fuel stand-by for the goods that we use at the moment, such as the red light on the telly or leaving mobile phone chargers plugged in.
	The real issue that must be addressed is lifestyle change. There is a great deal more concern about the environment, and we will have to recognise that and make it possible for individuals to deal with. Microgeneration, which has been mentioned in this House, is not a small issue that can be neglected. A great deal of the carbon content of our energy is being produced in the home. Combined heat and power, photovoltaic and solar thermal and geothermal and small wind turbines or home wind turbines would have a massive effect, because they would cut down on the distribution costs of electricity. Also, if we are looking at long-term strategies, that would have a real implication for strategy over the next few years. We are tied to the National Grid. I am not sure, if we designed the system today, whether we would look at the National Grid as being the answer to our problems. There is an enormous amount of power wastage in the transference of energy. Local energy production and distribution would cut down on that waste.
	Looking at our present sources of supply, I would be remiss not to deal with the nuclear question. We on these Benches have stated that we do not wish to go down the nuclear option. It might be that the Government decide that the nuclear option is the stopgap to keep the lights on, but there is a real cost implication. We will be spending an enormous amount of money building power stations. The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, suggested that renewables were not the answer. But if we spend the amount of money that we are going to be spending on new nuclear and the clean-up costs afterwards, that might well deal with some of the issues over the next 20 to 30 years.
	I find it interesting that we are talking about a new generation of power stations, the A1000, which have not yet been built. They are on the design board, but not one has been built. The answer given by the DTI is that it has never done a full cost analysis of a nuclear power station from cradle to grave. Those figures are not available, even though we have had a number of generations of nuclear power stations. That gives a problem with the costs, and cost over-run in nuclear power stations is a real issue. That is not to say that nuclear power stations will not be the answer in the future. However, the Government have to address the fact that if they give the go-ahead for nuclear power stations, they will also have to consider who will fund them. One of the major cost implications of a project of that size is offsetting the risk. It depends whether the Government are willing to pick up that tab, which will not be seen in the resolution.
	Many noble Lords have mentioned waste. I have often heard the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution report mentioned. I looked it up, as I had never read it before. I was interested to see that the Flowers report recommended in 1976 that no nuclear power plants should be built until a coherent waste management plan had been adopted. My maths is not very good, but 1976 does seem rather a long time ago, when they thought that there would be a solution to nuclear waste.

Lord Tombs: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I have two points to try to restore his address to what I would regard as a semblance of reality. First, of the currently-committed subsidy for wind power, half of that sum is enough to meet the total cost of a nuclear programme to save the same amount of CO2. Secondly, I commend him on his thirty years' late reading, but things have changed quite a lot since 1976.

Lord Redesdale: I thank the noble Lord for his second point. Things have not changed since 1976. I am interested in the debate about what to do with nuclear waste. We are not talking about a solution to nuclear waste; we are not talking about taking nuclear waste and turning it into something safe. We are talking about management of nuclear waste, which is an entirely different thing. It is still very dangerous. If you put it in a hole underground, it is still just as dangerous.
	Perhaps I should move on to another aspect of our energy supply. Gas is a fossil fuel. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, mentioned that nuclear should be seen as a renewable. Coal could be seen as renewable, because you could grow a forest and compress it. I do not see how nuclear could ever be a renewable, because it is an element that changes from one form to another. The subsidy regime is why some noble Lords are trying to link renewables and nuclear, and I find that interesting.
	Gas is cheap at the moment. However, as has been said in this House, the problem with talking about gas is that no cost has been put on to carbon capture. At the moment, we have gas without cost to the climate. It would be nice to say that we could grow trees to reduce that offset in carbon dioxide, but this is a fossil fuel gas that has been put into the atmosphere and it cannot be dealt with. At an interesting seminar at the Royal Society on carbon capture and storage, it was made clear that there is a real problem with that technology—it is not viable in the foreseeable future. So, although we talk about the cost of gas, we neglect to deal with the cost of carbon capture. The issue of carbon capture in relation to coal is interesting, and I very much hope that the Government will invest more in clean coal technology, especially to help the Chinese with brown coal.
	I move on to the subject of renewables. Although we talk about a large number of different renewables, the one that we are really talking about is wind. Many noble Lords have said that there are problems with wind. I admit that there are, and that there are problems with the base load that wind could supply. However, I was heartened to see that the regional spatial strategy for the north-east shows that it is possible that the region will meet its Kyoto targets for renewables of about 13 per cent and that its electricity will be supplied by renewables by 2010. On present plans, it is envisaged that by 2020 that figure will rise to 17 per cent, but it would rise to 19 per cent if offshore were included.
	So the issue of writing off wind factors as irrelevant, as many noble Lords have done, is, I feel, somewhat unfortunate. One reason that many people do so—this is a political issue—is that wind is seen as a competitor with nuclear. I do not believe that that is the case, although the matter has been raised in the past.

Noble Lords: It is additional.

Lord Redesdale: My Lords, so long as many noble Lords say that it is additional, that is fine, but that argument has been made in the past. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, spoke about nuclear and wind at the same time when I had not mentioned wind.
	I shall make my final point because I know that I am running out of time. Many noble Lords will soon be given a first-hand example of the power and potential of wind in the form of the London Array, which, it is hoped, will be built on the Thames estuary. It will consist of 1,000 turbines and will be the largest wind turbine farm in the world. I very much commend the Government and the companies involved in it, including E.ON and Shell, for their foresight in building this major project.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate today. She clarified that the debate was about the early policy decisions required to deal with long-term energy problems. That has been amply shown this afternoon by all the excellent speeches. We have heard so many experts on the subject that I am loath to put in my twopenn'orth, and I hope that the Minister will forgive me.
	It is also interesting that, by and large, this has been a non-political debate. We are all well aware that we all bothered by the problems of climate change and security of supply, and it behoves us that we should work together. So I congratulate all those who have spoken today.
	It is perhaps something of a cliché to call this a timely debate, but indeed it is—for two reasons. First, we have heard of the warnings advertised in the press by the National Grid and Ofgem about the danger of gas shortages if the winter is a severe as has been suggested. Secondly, despite the authoritative source of those reports from the National Grid and Ofgem, the Government dismissed them as somewhat "alarmist". Then, a few days later, the energy Minister, Mr Wicks, said that, although consumers would have fuel if that arose, it could affect companies and industry. That was emphasised again this week in a Question in this House.
	I remind the Government that their own 2003 energy White Paper and the Energy Act 2004 impose on them an obligation to ensure the security of supply. Over recent years, in addition the the passage of the Energy Act, many debates and questions on that very subject have been raised in this House. The Government's policy—or, perhaps, lack of it—is hampered by the fact that it is trying to do several, not necessarily compatible, things at once. As long as 15 months ago, your Lordships' Science and Technology Committee, in a renewable energy report, agreed with the identical conclusions of the environment Select Committee in the other place. It said that,
	"to pretend that all four goals [of reduction of carbon emissions, enhancement of security of supply, improving business competitiveness and reduction of fuel poverty] can be achieved simultaneously is a cop-out: the Government is not facing up to the real issue . . . some . . . trade-offs will almost certainly have to be made".
	It is how we approach those trade-offs that is important.
	The Government's policy is to rely mainly on gas and wind power. That puts us in competition with the equivalent needs of our European neighbours and makes us vulnerable to terrorist attacks. It is important to note that our own gas supplies are running down, and importing has an adverse effect on our already ballooning balance of payments. Perhaps when the Minister replies he can tell us what steps the Government are taking to increase our storage capacity from 11 days to the EU average of 52.
	Another major string to the Government's fuel supply, of course, is wind power. In the Government's eyes, wind power kills two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it provides power from a renewable source; on the other it helps us to meet our CO2 reduction obligations. However, we must think about whether the ecological benefits of this power are counterbalanced by many environmental disadvantages. Offshore wind farms, while having advantages of scale and potentially higher output than those on land, are more difficult and expensive to install and maintain. They can be a hazard to shipping, fish, birds and seals.
	Onshore wind farms also have major disadvantages, in that they are intrusive and noisy. Currently, Mr Wicks's department within the DTI has overridden planning procedures in two county councils, two district councils, 12 parish councils, English Nature, the RSPB and other agencies to permit 26 370-ft turbines to be built on Romney Marsh. They will be visible for 20 miles and, apart from the cables, six and half miles of new roads will have to be built.
	Wind power is a far from reliable source of power. I would like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that I am not knocking it. I am simply putting it in the context of the whole basket. The simple point is that wind does not blow all the time, whether in exposed beauty spots around the country or off the North Sea coast. Even if the countryside were virtually covered from top to bottom, they would work at only about a third of their potential capacity. That means that they need back-up from more conventional power stations. That is the experience of both Germany and Denmark. It cancels out, in part, the reduction of our CO2 reduction emissions, which the Government keep talking about and which we want to happen. It has to be borne in mind, however, that it is a total package.
	Every one of your Lordships who has had to fill his or her car with petrol knows only too well how oil prices have rocketed; equally so for all transport operators, who in the end pass the cost on to the customer; equally so for those who are dependent on oil for fuel, to run generators or for simple heating. Demand is currently rising in the United States, not merely seasonally, but because of their strengthening economy and everybody's love affair with gas-guzzling vehicles—I hope none of your Lordships have them, or you are going to be cross with me.
	China's requirements have risen by 20 per cent in just one year. China's current 21 million vehicles are set to increase to a staggering 390 million within the next 25 years. Then there is India, as well as the emerging third world countries. Oil companies are maintaining low strategic oil stocks for economic reasons, which makes the market vulnerable to events such as the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico or unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere, to say nothing of the chaos in the market caused by an ongoing struggle between the Russian government and its major oil company. We have also seen oil used as a political weapon in the Middle East. It is so used today by terrorists, even disrupting supplies from Iraq.
	The IMF has projected that worldwide oil consumption will increase from the current 82 million barrels a day to almost 140 million by 2040. An IMF economist forecasts an oil price of up to $56 a barrel. There are also plenty of commodity speculators and hedge funds out there, whose gambling with oil futures is distorting the market. We cannot leave our fuel supplies linked so strongly to yet another commodity—oil—over which we in this country do not have control.
	There is also coal. The problem with coal, of course, is the emissions. Useful as it clearly is, and will be for some time, one has to realise that. For the future, however, modern clean coal technology makes our own coal—or imported, less sulphurous types—more economic and environmentally sound. The technology for clean coal available in this country is urgently needed by China and would, in itself, be an excellent currency earner. I do not see anything in the Government's policy to encourage that. On the contrary, the carbon tax—the climate change levy—is a distinct disincentive.
	On wave power, the technology is being developed, but with woefully scant subsidy from the Government. I find it paradoxical that the DTI's website disparages wave power on the grounds of noise, impact on shipping, visual impact and so on when those are the very same disadvantages it ignores when pushing offshore wind farms.
	The report of your Lordships' committee on energy efficiency berates the Government's position on energy efficiency as being muddled and inconsistent. What steps have the Government taken in the past 15 months to implement the committee's recommendations on measuring the contribution that energy efficiency makes towards us meeting our emission targets?
	I want to turn nuclear power, a subject mentioned today and during previous years by many noble Lords. The Government cannot keep ducking the issue. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that it is no good saying that we should not ask for a quick answer because we have already been waiting and waiting. But so that he should not be too cross with me, I congratulate him on his new position at the Combined Heat and Power Association. There is a sizeable cross-party group of Peers—I could mention the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin of Roding, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, Lord Ezra, Lord Tomlinson and Lord Tombs—who are to be commended for their persistence in continuing to raise this matter.
	In Answer to a Written Question tabled by me, the Minister stated that,
	"a market-based approach is the best way of delivering energy security"—[Official Report, 23/2/05; col. WA 209.]
	With respect, no prospective generator will stick its head over the parapet and propose to build a new power station without knowing in advance, and before spending a fortune on preliminary professional fees and land acquisition, that the project will have the wholehearted, unequivocal support of the Government. And not just support, but active encouragement. In an article in this month's Business Voice, all that the Secretary of State for the Environment could do was to repeat the stale mantra that all options, including nuclear, should be kept open. I have a simple question to ask and all I want to know is whether the answer is "yes" or "no". It is important that we short these things out now.
	First, I ask noble Lords to forgive me for not having mentioned all today's contributions. I know I have 20 minutes, but I do not want to bore everyone. All the contributions have been valuable, especially those of the two maiden speakers. I particularly liked the emphasis placed by the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, on the basket of different things. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, that we do not want to throw anything out; we just want to keep what we have and encourage people to do more of the same.
	The question to which we want an answer is: do the Government want new nuclear power stations built just before our present ones run out of steam? If the answer is "yes", will the Minister remember that he also told me that it takes from 10 to 15 years from the decision to build to the time when generation can begin? How much of our power resources must we lose before the present stations are to be replaced? And if they are not replaced by nuclear, by what will they be replaced, and at what cost to the environment and the economy?
	My noble friend Lord Attlee dealt most adequately with the problem of nuclear waste. The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, was right to tell us there is waste already—old waste. But the Government should not use that as an excuse not to go nuclear in future. Doing so will cause far less waste and we have to make a decision on the old waste anyway. That needs to be considered.
	I shall conclude in a moment or two, but I want to say that I had a letter from my namesake, the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. She was called away and cannot be here for the end of the debate. Because she is not here, I want to say one thing which I would be embarrassed to say if she were. I know that many noble Lords do not agree with parts of what she said. One of the beauties of this House is that we can all say what we want to say. The noble Baroness believes it all so passionately and we should give credit for that.
	Time does not permit me to mention, except in passing, other essential elements in our fuel supplies—combined heat and power, biofuel, microgeneration and biomass, referred to so expertly by my noble friend. The fact is that in every aspect we have been discussing, the Government's love affair with wind and gas seems to exclude everything else from immediate decisions.
	I shall conclude by paraphrasing our position, which was set out next door in an Early Day Motion by my colleagues. The truth is that they cannot discuss it down there. But, I thought I would paraphrase the Motion so that noble Lords know the problems we have with not getting anywhere. We are concerned about the security of supply for electricity in the medium term, about the failure of the Government to reduce CO2 emissions, and that the United Kingdom's indigenous oil and gas supplies are running down and that by next year we will be a net importer of gas. We believe that any increase in the use of coal-fired generation in its present form will have significant environmental consequences.
	We are concerned that the renewable target for this year is not being met and we are concerned that the decommissioning of nuclear power stations, commencing in 2008, will give rise to significant shortfalls in our electricity supplies. So, we call on the Government to make a decision shortly on the future role of nuclear power and set out a timetable for action that will reconcile economic and environmental objectives. That is not too much to ask. I thank everyone for listening.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for initiating this debate and those noble Lords who have spoken. Debates in this House on energy matters are always of the highest quality, and this has been no exception. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, on his most excellent maiden speech, although I would not have expected anything less from a former Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Energy, an outstanding High Commissioner to Australia and a graduate of King's College Cambridge. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, on his powerful and wide-ranging speech. In both cases we look forward to many more brilliant speeches in the future.
	In the energy White Paper, published in 2003, the Government confirmed their strategic policy objectives for energy, including the maintenance of reliable energy supplies. The White Paper also re-affirmed the Government's belief that their role is to set the framework within which the market can operate. It is not to intervene in the market, except in extreme circumstances, or to dictate to the market, or to individual companies, the right way to operate.
	The Government, the DTI and Ofgem establish a regulatory and commercial environment conducive to major new ventures, and to work with individual projects to identify, and help remove, avoidable non-commercial obstacles. Providing supply to meet demand is a commercial matter. We believe that approach has worked well, particularly in allowing companies to make informed decisions on investment.
	As Great Britain moves towards increasing gas imports, we face a need for new gas import and storage infrastructure—as well as diversity of sources, supply routes and import points—and open and fair markets, enabling gas to get efficiently to where it is most needed.
	I am pleased to say that three important new facilities to increase the amount of gas available to the UK market will be ready for this winter. The new liquefied natural gas import terminal at the Isle of Grain has already been commissioned; a new gas storage project at Humbly Grove in Hampshire will shortly commission; and a large increase in the import capacity of the interconnector from Belgium is due to commission in November—a month early. There are several further major projects due in the next winter or so, including further LNG import terminals under development at Milford Haven at Canvey Island, and potentially in north Wales.
	In other words, the Government's approach to security of supply is working and we are seeing at least £10 billion of private sector investment going into providing gas to UK markets in the next few years. There has in recent days been a great deal of debate about the number of days of gas storage that we have in this country. The noble Lords, Lord Woolmer and Lord Jenkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, raised that issue. The figures need to be interpreted carefully. The number of days of gas storage that a country needs depends on whether it produces gas. Not surprisingly, those countries that have their own gas supplies tend not to have any storage facilities. In the case of the UK, we are moving from a position where swing production in the North Sea enables us to cover for fluctuations in the demand for gas to one where our capacity is much less. At the same time, the decline of North Sea gas has taken place faster than expected and we therefore have less gas storage at this point than we would ideally like to have.
	However, it is unnecessarily alarmist to compare our situation with that of countries that have no natural gas supplies. Clearly, those countries have and continue to have much greater gas storage, because they have no capacity to use swing production to cover fluctuations in demand. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that the speed of introducing new facilities lies entirely with industry; it is not dependent on any decision of government or the framework of government. It is not only in the gas sector that we have seen market participants signing up to long-term investment in energy infrastructure.
	My department is currently considering applications for consent for the construction of more than 4 gigawatts generating capacity. That includes a 2,000 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine power station at Pembroke and a 1,220 megawatt CCGT at Drakelow. We have also seen the return to service of Killingholme power station and a further unit at Drakelow, both in time for this winter, in response to price signals indicating a need for additional capacity. As a result, we are going into the winter with a healthy level of electricity generating capacity of just over 20 per cent.
	We are also seeing a commitment to a diverse, sustainable and secure energy supply from industry in response to government signals. Since the introduction of the renewables obligation in 2002, there has been a step-change in the amount of new renewable generating capacity. In 2004, 3.1 per cent of electricity supplies came from renewables obligation-eligible sources. That may seem small in absolute terms, but it is nearly double that of 2002, and is enough to supply more than 2 million households. In June this year, the UK passed the 1 gigawatt wind barrier. Although we recognise that wind energy will make the largest contribution towards the Government's 10 per cent target, we expect other low-carbon technologies, such as wave, tidal and solar PV to come to the fore after 2010.
	To my noble friend Lord O'Neill, I say that the Government believe that there will be a continuing role for coal in meeting this country's needs for some years to come, provided that its potential environmental impacts can be managed satisfactorily. Coal-fired generation still supplies around a third of the UK's electricity needs, and this can rise to more than 40 per cent during the winter months. In recent years, UK coal producers have supplied about half the generators' needs, with a little more than half of that tonnage coming from deep mines and a little less than half from the surface mine sector.
	The Government have demonstrated our support for the UK coal industry by making more than £200 million available as coal state aid since 2000. Despite this, the industry has still continued to contract as mines have closed owing to geological problems or exhaustion or because, even if more coal investment aid were available, mine operators could not afford to finance their share of the investment cost.
	The noble Lords, Lord Woolmer and Lord Jenkin of Roding, raised the question of EU liberalisation. They are of course right that that is a key issue. Although our markets are working reasonably well, prices on the continent are not fully market-reflective, as so few of the energy markets in the EU are functioning properly. That is why making European energy markets work properly is a key priority for the UK presidency.
	Looking to this winter, there are concerns over gas supplies, and the Government are taking those concerns very seriously. There has also been a lot of coverage about forecasts of a cold winter. It is important to be clear what the forecasts are predicting. Reports are not suggesting that there will be a one in 50 winter of the sort last experienced in 1962–63, but that there is a 65 per cent chance that it will be similar to that of 1995–96. As I have explained, the gas market is likely to be tighter than in recent winters. Under normal weather conditions, however, there are sufficient gas supplies and electricity generation to meet demand.
	Analysis shows that even in the severest winters the market can maintain supplies due to demand switching away from gas, including switching to coal for electricity production, switching to alternative fuels for some other large industrial users, or for choosing to sell gas back to the market if that makes more commercial sense than burning it. For example, under the one in 10 winter scenario suggested as a possibility by the Met Office, 70 per cent of the demand-side response could potentially be met if the electricity generating sector moved to different fuels.
	The Secretary of State has also written to key UK gas producers and terminal, operators reinforcing the need for them to do all they can to maximise gas production this winter and to work closely with each other should a supply emergency arise.Also, let us not forget that generators and electricity suppliers have strong financial incentives to meet their customers' needs through the existence of half-hourly energy imbalance prices. Generators that produce less electricity than contracted are "cashed out" by paying the relevant imbalance price on the difference between their physical and contracted generation. Those prices are based on the average balancing costs that the National Grid incurs in balancing the system and can be very high. For example, during the unexpected cold spell of early March 2005, the price that generators paid for being "short" peaked was £223 per megawatt hour. There are huge incentives for the generators to make certain that they can supply the system.
	Under all credible scenarios, however, the energy market will be able to deliver supplies to domestic consumers. That is the short-term situation. Looking forward, we need to ensure that our energy remains secure, affordable and sustainable. The changes that we need to prepare for are: the closure of our existing nuclear power stations as they come to the end of their lives over the next 20 years, the need to reduce our emissions by 2050 to meet the challenge of climate change, and becoming a net importer of gas as supplies in the North Sea decline.
	The 2003 energy White Paper set out a policy of "keeping the nuclear option open" so that new build could be considered in depth in the future. In the mean time, we have brought forward skills and research initiatives as part of that policy, including the Cogent Sector Skills Council, licensed in 2004 to take a strategic view and ensure that current and future skills needs are met.
	The energy White Paper also acknowledged that:
	"We need to be prepared, within a firm and clear strategic context, to review the impact of policy changes and to update and amend our detailed policy measures in the light of experience".
	The Government continue to believe that the goals set out in the energy White Paper provide the right framework for our energy policy, but it is only right that we examine our detailed policy initiatives within that framework.
	The Prime Minister announced last month that the Government will publish proposals on the future of energy policy next year, and that that will need to consider all options, including emerging technologies from renewables to carbon capture and storage and civil nuclear power. In the context of the importance of tackling climate change and an increasing reliance on imported fossil fuels, civil nuclear power, a source of low-carbon electricity, is clearly an option that we will need to look at with particular care.
	The noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, offered me the opportunity of gaining the approval of the whole House by agreeing that nuclear is a renewable source of energy—it clearly is so. I am very happy to agree that nuclear is a renewable source of energy. However, it has other problems such as safety and environmental impact, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, reminded us. Also, we do not see new nuclear build or any other single technology as a "silver bullet" solution to our future energy needs.
	Debates on energy, in my experience, often sound rather like discussions on football clubs: everyone has their favourite energy source, and everyone believes that other people's favourites are complete rubbish. If we consider that, in energy policy, we have a number of different objectives that must be traded off and recognise that there is considerable economic, political and technological uncertainty, we will see that almost any sensible energy policy is based on wide diversity of energy sources. I agree with my noble friend Lord Woolmer of Leeds and the noble Lords, Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Redesdale, about the need for balance. It is a question of how you balance different energy sources as you go forward and as your knowledge of the current situation changes.
	The Prime Minister has also made it clear that there cannot be a new generation of nuclear power stations if we do not deal with the issues relating to cost and acceptability that develop or that lie around the issue of waste and how you tackle it. As we said in the energy White Paper, before any decision is taken to proceed with the building of new nuclear power stations there would need to be the fullest public consultation and the publication of a further White Paper setting out our proposals.
	Noble Lords made other important points that I would like to answer. Some noble Lords raised the question of costs. Everyone has their own figures, which usually favour their own technology. One of the tasks of the review will be to produce objective, transparent figures that allow for comparison to be made between different energy sources. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, that the question of the handling of nuclear waste and a decision to build a new fleet of nuclear stations can be totally separated. If nuclear power is to be accepted by people, they need to know that we have a solution to nuclear waste. I had hoped that we would have learnt the lesson from the past that taking new technologies and pushing them forward without any consideration of the concerns that people have about them is a foolish way to proceed. People have real concerns, and one of those concerns is about what happens with nuclear waste. If we push forward without taking account of those concerns and without a solution for them, we will get into real trouble.
	I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, quote the Prime Minister's remark that it was only through science and technology that we would find a solution to climate change. It is foolish to believe that China and India will in any way cut back their growth to solve climate change. Certainly, the USA will not do so, and I doubt very much that any political party will go to the people of this country and suggest to them that they should cut back their standard of living to deal with climate change. That means that science and technology must provide the solution with regard to new sources of energy.
	My noble friend Lord Tomlinson raised the question of the timing of the energy review. I am afraid that I cannot give any better indication of when the new proposals on energy will come out, but the terms of reference and method of operation of the study are being worked on and will be announced shortly.
	Several noble Lords were concerned about the UK's future dependence on imports, especially those from politically unstable countries. Becoming a net importer of gas is not itself a threat to security. All other G7 economies, apart from Canada, have been net importers for years, and imports of gas have proved reliable historically. Major suppliers, such as Norway, could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as "unsafe". Here again, one should point to the inevitable economic, political and technological uncertainty. We must have balance against other energy sources that will give us more security.
	The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, raised the important and difficult question of the safety of LNG port facilities. I am not familiar with the issues involved, and I shall write to the noble Lord as soon as I have the answer.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, referred to Sir Ben Gill's report and the Government's response. The report inevitably covers the activities of Defra and the DTI. The departments will work together on considering the recommendations and taking them forward.
	The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, spoke about the report of the Institution of Civil Engineers. I am an honorary fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, so I asked about the report. Let me say again what I hope I have said before. When I was faced with a question from this House on whether it was likely that we would reach the 10 per cent target, I did what I thought anyone in those circumstances would do. I got hold of the figures, looked at all the projects in the pipeline and looked at the probabilities and timing of each of those projects to see whether it was realistic to think that we could get to the 10 per cent target. To my surprise it looked possible.
	When the Institution of Civil Engineers said, "It is absolutely impossible", clearly one asked: "Do you think that the figures we have, the probabilities, are all wrong, because this is a matter of judgment about probabilities, timings, and so on?". It said, frankly and clearly, that it was not based on any detailed calculations. That was simply the consensus of its members. My point is that, in those circumstances, I like to rely on the figures and my judgment of them, rather than simply a consensus view which is not evidence-based.
	I was delighted to hear the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool, raise the issue of fusion. Not many people take a great interest in that subject. I must admit that that is some way off. We have just agreed the site of the world project at Cadarache. If, in parallel to that, we do the IFNIF project, which is about materials, the best calculation would be that we might in 35 years' time have commercial electricity. In spite of that time difference, it is a sensible thing to do. If it came off, it would transform the world's ability to produce energy without producing waste. It is still some way off, but it is a very important project.
	My noble friend Lord Haworth raised the key and simple argument which the energy review will have to consider. Simply, if we run down nuclear power stations, by 2020 we take out 20 per cent of our clean energy sources. If you are very optimistic—you would have to be very optimistic—you might get renewables to 20 per cent. But that would simply mean that we have gone 20 years without making any impact on our emissions. If you care about climate change, you have to ask yourself whether that is an acceptable situation or whether you should bring in nuclear, which, again, depends on judgments about the safety and cost of doing so.
	The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, raised transmission system upgrades. The Government are very aware that the timely completion of upgrades to electricity infrastructure is crucial in achieving the 2010 target. We therefore welcome the £560 million of investment approved by Ofgem last December. The DTI, Ofgem and transmission operators are working together via the Transmission Issues Working Group to facilitate the timely delivery of the necessary upgrades. My noble friend Lord Berkeley, the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, rightly raised energy efficiency. The energy White Paper placed energy efficiency at the heart of the Government's long-term energy strategy, identifying it as the cheapest, cleanest and safest way of addressing all our energy objectives, including security of supply.
	I am sure that noble Lords will welcome the news that we have made good progress so far. For example, around 10 million households, six million of which are on low incomes, have benefited from energy-saving measures over the past three-year phase of the energy efficiency commitment. We expect even greater progress to be made in the current phase of the commitment, which will see activity increased to a level that is broadly twice that of the first phase. A number of other important issues were raised by noble Lords, and I will write to them.
	I said at the start of this debate that the Government believe that they should set a clear, consistent framework for industry, with incentives for it to deliver on the Government's public policy objectives. We also understand that in an uncertain economic and technological world, a diversity of energy sources is essential. The House can be assured that the Government will continue to deliver a clear, consistent framework, which will enable industry to meet the UK's demand for energy and achieve the Government's environmental, energy security and low-cost objectives.

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, we have had a brilliant debate. I was right when I said at the beginning that we would hear from heavyweight contributors—not physically but intellectually. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, was the one noble Lord to say that he is a lightweight, but I am sure that everyone will remember his measured, expert and fascinating description of some of the renewable options available from the water, under the water and in the water. I would like to see those submerged propeller-driven pylons, but I do worry about the fish. My noble friend Lord Attlee described himself as a bantamweight. That is sheer nonsense. He has long been one of the informed band of brothers and sisters who comprise the House of Lords group of energy geeks.
	I was so sorry that a mistake resulted in none of us being aware that the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, was to make his maiden speech in this debate. I hope that he will accept our apologies. Absolutely no discourtesy was intended on our part. In fact, that error made me feel quite ill for some time at the start of the debate. The noble Lord made a wonderful speech and he is a great addition to our House. We welcome him.
	My noble friend Lord Goodlad never disappoints, of course. He made a brilliant contribution and I hope that he will become a frequent contributor to our debates. I am only mildly sorry that during the brief period in which he left the Chamber, he was not able to hear the noble Lord, Lord Haworth , suggest that nuclear waste should be buried in the middle of Australia.
	Hansard for 27 October 2005 will be required reading for all who are concerned about and interested in the fundamentally important subject of energy supply. Let us remember what the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said: "Unless we do something, unless we decide on nuclear power, we will be guilty of the abrogation of our responsibility to our people". That is what it is all about.
	The variety of the contributions made has been amazing. It was said that gas is not a sunset industry, rather it is still alive and well to the north of Shetland. The risk of serious and fatal accidents in harbour was described in graphic detail by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, and was pretty scary. Also, the folly of relying on countries that are chronically unstable for our energy supplies was underlined with great force by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick. I thank him for his contribution. My noble friend Lady Byford made me ask myself exactly what is the size of a hectare of land. I am told that it is two and a half acres. It means that two and half million acres of land would be able to provide 9 million tonnes of energy crops. Again, that is something that would help to strike the balance we need. I will also remember clearly the lovely statement made by my noble friend Lord Marlesford that nuclear power is the Clause 4 of the Liberal Democrat Party.
	It has been said time and time again that we require clarity of policy; indeed, it was the clarion call of the debate. Next year, as the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said, can mean anything from two months to 14 months. However, I thank the Minister for his summing up. He did not resist the temptation to be congratulated by the whole House, so I take it upon myself to congratulate him on giving us a clear statement that nuclear power is a renewable. I thank him for that. But I would still like him to write to me to say when we are going to get a policy rather than proposals.
	In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. It has been a remarkable day. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Harbours Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I can tell noble Lords that the Bill has the support of the ports industry, which has identified an anomaly in the Harbours Act 1964. The Bill before us is intended to remove that anomaly and is essentially one designed to achieve a much-needed degree of deregulation of the ports industry in England and Wales by applying the same rules to the maritime sector as are applied successfully to other transport modes.
	I should remind noble Lords that I have introduced similar Bills in this House on previous occasions. The last Bill I introduced, during the 2003–04 Session, was debated at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report where some amendments were made to it. Unfortunately there was insufficient time in that Session for the Bill to proceed further. The amendments made at Report stage have been included in the Bill now before your Lordships. I shall not repeat what I said on the first occasion. This is the third time and I hope it is lucky. During the passage of the earlier Bills through the House, the Government expressed support for the Bill, as did the Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and some Cross-Benchers. In other words, the Bill received all-round support.
	Similar provisions relating to harbours in Scotland—and to harbour orders, in particular—were introduced by the Scottish Executive on 27 October 2004 in the Transport (Scotland) Bill. That Bill completed its passage through the Scottish Parliament on 29 June this year. To that extent, of course, the Scots are ahead of the English and the Welsh, but it is to be hoped that we will catch up quite soon.
	The background to the Bill requires some technical explanation. Sections 14 to 16 of the Harbours Act 1964 empower the Secretary of State to make harbour orders. Such orders are required, for example, to establish or reconstitute harbour authorities, or to confer on existing harbour authorities additional powers to construct harbour works or to manage their harbours.
	The procedure for the making of harbour orders is set out in Schedule 3 to the 1964 Act. That schedule provides for objections to the making of a proposed harbour order to be sent to the Secretary of State within a six week period from the time the proposal is advertised. Where such an objection is made and not withdrawn, the Secretary of State must—I emphasise "must"—hold a public inquiry to consider the proposal unless he determines that the objection is trivial or frivolous. The result is that a public inquiry must be held even if there is only one outstanding objection, unless of course the Secretary of State determines that it is trivial or frivolous. Quite rightly, the Secretary of State rarely categorises any objection as such. An objection made by a local resident who expresses a concern is, in practice, very unlikely to be determined as trivial or frivolous. There have been a number of cases where a single outstanding objection to an order has necessitated the holding of a public inquiry, which of course causes delay and considerable expense for all concerned. Perhaps I may give two brief examples.
	The first example relates to the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Harbour Revision Order. As noble Lords will know, Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom and the fourth largest in Europe. An application was made in October 2000 for a harbour revision order to authorise major new harbour works of considerable local and national significance. By November 2001, just over a year later, all but one of several objections had been withdrawn following the provision of appropriate assurances and undertakings to bodies such as the Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. As a result of the single outstanding objection, lodged and maintained by a local resident, a public inquiry took place over seven sitting days, resulting in the order being delayed until October 2002, virtually one year later. So there was a year's delay.
	In his decision the Secretary of State stated:
	"The project should proceed for imperative reasons of overriding public interest".
	It is the port industry's view that if the Secretary of State had been able to deal with the objection by written representations, as provided for in this Bill, it is likely that the order could have been made in about February 2002, with a significant reduction in costs and delay.
	The other example to which I should like to refer relates to the Whitehaven—at the other end of the country—Harbour Revision Order 1996. In 1995 the Whitehaven Harbour commissioners applied for a harbour revision order to authorise the construction of a lock and other harbour works as a key part of an urgently needed scheme for the regeneration of the Whitehaven town and the area surrounding it. Objections were made by holders of harbour bonds which had been issued in the 19th century to finance the port expansion. The bonds had virtually no market value and Whitehaven harbour was, by the time of the order, very little used and heading towards insolvency. However, the bondholders objected to the order on the grounds that the works would undermine the commercial value of their bonds. Following discussions with the Whitehaven harbour commissioners, three bondholders refused to withdraw their objections in the knowledge that their action would lead to a public inquiry, resulting in a delay and leading to the loss of European Commission funding, which was clearly very serious. As a condition of withdrawing their objections, they required that their bonds should be purchased at considerably more than their minimal market value. To resolve the issue, a number of private individuals contributed money to purchase the bonds, and the order was eventually made in June 1996.
	In this example, the current system was used to hold to ransom a public project of considerable local economic significance in an area of pretty high unemployment. Again, the situation would not have arisen if the Secretary of State had had the powers to consider their objections by means of written representations.
	The ports industry feels very strongly that the present position is unsatisfactory and that the Harbours Act 1964 requires amendment. I understand that there are no proposals to include in this parliamentary Session a transport Bill which could be a suitable vehicle for such an amendment; we suggested that it could have been put in a transport safety Bill, but it has nothing to do with safety, so it was not a very sensible suggestion. Officials have given no indication about when parliamentary time could be found for such a Bill.
	The effect of the Bill would be to bring the procedure for making harbour orders into line with those for making highways or transport and works orders. The Secretary of State would retain a discretion to hold a public inquiry in all cases. Where an objection is made by a relevant local authority, English Nature, the Countryside Council for Wales, or a person whose land is proposed to be compulsorily acquired and who requests a hearing, the Secretary of State would be required to choose to hold a public inquiry or a public hearing. In other cases, the Secretary of State would have the discretion, instead of holding a public inquiry or a public hearing, to deal with the objections by written representations.
	Neither the Highways Act nor the Transport and Works Act expressly provides that, where objections have been made and sustained, and where the Secretary of State has decided to proceed without an inquiry or hearing, he must deal with those objections by means of written representations. However, both Acts provide that in such circumstances, the Secretary of State must consider those objections and, as a matter of practice, he will consider any further written representations made by the objectors and the applicant to the order where those representations are volunteered or where they are made at his invitation. A similar procedure for written representations would follow on the enactment of the Bill when read with paragraph 19(i)(d) of Schedule 3 to the Harbours Act 1964, which provides that the Secretary of State must consider any objections which are made and not withdrawn.
	The consultation that has been undertaken on the Bill is very similar to what was undertaken on the previous two. Discussions and/or letters have been exchanged with the British Marine Federation, the Country Land and Business Association, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and English Nature. I met some of them, the British Ports Association met others, and we have had no comments or objections. I believe that silence over a period of several weeks means consent.
	I believe that the Bill is consistent with the provisions of the Human Rights Act because it will apply similar measures in other legislation. In the case of a landowner whose land is to be subject to compulsory acquisition by means of a harbour order, his right to require a public inquiry will be retained.
	I conclude. If this Bill is enacted, it will enable the Secretary of State to exercise his discretion in appropriate circumstances to speed up the process of making orders under the Harbours Act. It will certainly reduce red tape and help our harbours cope with a welcome growth in business while maintaining the ability of those who have legitimate concerns to make representations and, in certain circumstances, ask for an inquiry. The Bill is therefore welcomed by the ports industry. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Berkeley.)

Lord Greenway: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on this small but important Bill. I must confess to having a slight feeling of déjà-vu—or should I say "third view"?—because, as the noble Lord pointed out, this is the third time that he has tried to get this small but effective Bill on to the statute book. His clear explanation needs no window dressing. The Bill has the laudable aim of trying to simplify and, in many cases, speed up the process of making harbour orders.
	We all know that our harbours have played a vital role over the years in terms of our transport links and overseas trade. They have played a role also in our internal trade if we go further back in time. Environmental concerns mean that more goods are being carried by sea and taken off the roads and other means of transport, so it is important that harbours have the freedom to be able to do what they want without too much obstruction in the form of long and tedious public hearings. The aims of the Bill are admirable and I give it every support.

Lord Addington: My Lords, unlike the two noble Lords who have just spoken in this short debate, I am afraid that I come new to this subject. I read the previous debates in Hansard and found them to be almost unnaturally relevant to this debate as we are dealing with more or less the same subject. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw spoke on the previous occasion, in a way that probably only he can, about trivial objections being raised. He said that one has to put up with some interference to see any improvements.
	The only original point that I thought of making was made by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. We have just heard an entire debate about energy usage. Shipping is an efficient use of energy; it is an efficient way of transporting goods. We must look to build up our harbours and make sure that they are fit for purpose in the current century. I hope that this legislation will be seen as a part of an integrated transported approach which will deal not only with the harbours but also with the rail and road links that are needed on the other side. Let us look at the Bill holistically. It is good not only for trade, but also for keeping our greenhouse emissions down.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, it would be appropriate to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on persevering and introducing this Bill to your Lordships' House for a third time. I do not know whether he has set some kind of record—that is probably one for the students of parliamentary history. I have not been involved with this legislation previously, but the issues have been discussed at some length. As the noble Lord's measures have received support from all sides of the House, I shall keep my comments pretty brief.
	We support the Bill's attempt effectively to streamline—one could say, deregulate to a small degree—the procedure for handling objections to harbours orders. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said, it is effectively a technical measure which will bring harbour order procedures into line with other recent arrangements. He referred to the highways legislation, but I would like briefly to touch on the planning legislation, because it is not a million miles away from what we are discussing. It is important that when there are inquiries, local voices are heard and local views cannot be ignored. As one who took part in the discussions on the planning Bill that passed though this House, and being a member of a local authority, I know only too well that anything that looks like compulsorily taking people's land, or affecting their land or living in any way, immediately becomes a complex and emotional issue.
	I think that we would all agree that we want to make sure that that local representation is paramount; I am sure that that is the Government's aim. But we must also ensure that major projects of considerable importance are not delayed because one person has major objections, which is clearly what this Bill is about. Those objections should be handled as quickly and effectively as possible.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said, there are four deep sea container ports with applications. The economic benefits of those ports and facilities, especially with regard to job creation, are potentially immense. Noble Lords will be aware that the new developments are being proposed for some of the most economically deprived areas in the country. So striking a sensible balance between the need for new development and protecting the rights of the ordinary citizen is of the utmost importance, and I believe that the Bill is able to do that.
	I am also pleased that the legislation extends the right to call for a public inquiry to English Nature and the Countryside Council for Wales, as that gives important recognition to the concerns about how the legislation will interact with the need to protect some of the most sensitive environmental areas in the country. Indeed, our coastlines must fall into that category.
	I said that I would be brief—and I will. We support the principles behind the Bill. We may want to probe a little further into it during what I imagine will be a short Committee stage, but in the mean time we welcome the Bill and wish it well.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I speak briefly in this debate for two reasons. First, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Berkeley on his persistence in introducing this important but modest Bill. To do so for the third time, as noble Lords have said, represents dogged determination of an admirable nature. Secondly, I offer the Government's support for the Bill.
	Noble Lords will understand that in the circumstances my comments will be very similar to those relayed by my noble friends Lord McIntosh and Lord Bassam at Second Reading debates in previous Sessions. I need not apologise for that, as the basic arguments in favour of the Bill remain unchanged. The objectives of the Bill are to streamline the procedure for handling objections to harbour orders. It is a simple technical measure which will bring harbour order procedure into line with more recent arrangements—with the planning system, for example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said. It will also bring England and Wales into line with Scotland, where a similar amendment to the Harbours Act 1964 was passed by the Scottish Parliament in August.
	The House will know that harbours in this country are managed by harbour authorities, which act as statutory undertakers with powers which in most cases were conferred originally by private Act of Parliament. Those powers have been used to authorise the original construction of the harbour and to enable the harbour authority to regulate the safe and efficient use of those facilities. Harbour authorities are also subject to a body of general regulation, but their local powers remain centrally important to the operation of our ports. Harbour authorities need to be able to revise their powers from time to time, to keep them up to date and to meet new demands. It may be appropriate to change the constitution of a harbour authority, for example, or to move the harbour limit, or to update the powers that it has to make bylaws. New powers are also needed to authorise harbour works, mainly because works in tidal waters interfere with rights of navigation and because the authority's regulatory powers have to be statutorily extended to any new facilities.
	Until 1964 a harbour authority's statutory powers could be revised only by private Act. The Harbours Act 1964, as my noble friend has said, created a procedure to make harbour orders. These are statutory instruments made by the Secretary of State for Transport. The 1964 Act may have seemed modern in its day, but it has been overtaken by developments in procedural practice—notably, for instance, by those contained in the Transport and Works Act 1992. This Bill would bring the procedures for making harbour orders back up to date.
	The procedure for making a harbour order begins with an application from the harbour authority, or would-be harbour authority in the case of an empowerment order. All applications are advertised so that people have a chance to object and make representations. I stress at this point that the Government regard as extremely important the ability of stakeholders and the general public to participate in the process. It is right that they should have the opportunity to make representations, which should then be properly considered.
	The 1964 Act makes provision for a public inquiry. Again, the Government see the value of such a provision when there is a range of serious issues to be considered. Noble Lords will be aware that a number of recent port developments have been the subject of public inquiries—for example, Dibden Bay in Southampton in 2002, the London Gateway at Shell Haven on the Thames Estuary in 2003, and Bathside Bay in Harwich last year.
	The Bill does not seek to remove the Secretary of State's ability to hold inquiries to consider major port developments. Rather, it aims at a particular consequence of the Act's provisions, which require an inquiry to be held even when there is only one objection. The Bill achieves this by allowing greater flexibility to the Secretary of State to determine proposals by way of written representation or another form of hearing. That aim seems to me, and to noble Lords who have spoken, to be perfectly in keeping with preserving an objector's right to have their views considered while avoiding some of the less beneficial consequences of mandatory inquiries.
	Inquiries are disproportionate in some cases. Harbour authorities can be deterred from making desirable changes by the delay, uncertainty and cost. It is hard to plan a proposal knowing that there might be just one objection that could lead to an inquiry. Inquiries can also be inaccessible for some objectors, especially ordinary members of the public, who can find a hearing or written representation less daunting.
	The Town and Country Planning Act and the Transport and Works Act allow hearings and representations as an alternative to an inquiry. Importantly, these more modern procedures still give objectors a full right to be properly heard. This Bill matches the flexibility contained in those acts, and preserves the right to an inquiry where one's land is compulsorily acquired or the objector is a local authority. In addition, the right to an inquiry is given to the Government's statutory advisers on nature conservation, English Nature and the Countryside Council for Wales. Port development can and must be sustainable. Preserving the rights of these two latter bodies is proper, and we have no doubt they will be exercised appropriately by the bodies concerned.
	In summary, the regulatory impact assessment shows that the changes would cost nothing, and would benefit ports and objectors. The Bill would help the ports industry respond with greater agility to changing markets while maintaining full and effective scrutiny of proposed changes. I assure the House that only appropriate use would be made of the new discretion. The Secretary of State would not use it to avoid inquiries where they need to be held. We have plenty of precedents in the planning system to guide us on how the Secretary of State's discretion should be exercised. The Bill, if enacted, would make a useful contribution to the Government's policy of streamlining planning and related planning procedures.
	The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked whether this was part of an integrated transport policy. A review of port policy will be launched early next year. One of the topics that the review will address will be the relationship between ports and supporting infrastructure.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for the excellent support for the Bill. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, has been a long-standing supporter of the Bill, for which I am very grateful. He has enormous experience and knowledge of the UK port industry, which I do not believe anyone will equal for a long time, with the possible exception of Lord Donaldson in a different way, who wished me well with the Bill before he sadly died.
	Possibly I should not have given the example of the port of Felixstowe. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, discussed port expansion. The Minister made it clear that this Bill does not apply to major port development. The example that I gave regarding Felixstowe concerned a very small earlier development. The two applications at Felixstowe have been subject to an inquiry, or, technically, two inquiries. The Secretary of State has not yet made his decision. These will be very small developments. As my noble friend said, anything bigger would probably be subject to a public inquiry anyway. As regards the developments that I am discussing, some people might believe that matters are being frustrated by one person. The process that is being undertaken is quicker and easier than having a public inquiry.
	My noble friend explained the Government's approach to these matters. That was helpful. It is easy to say in this place that something should happen but if one is personally affected by a development, one is on the other side of the fence. One needs to have the comfort of knowing that one can object and that one's representations will be listened to carefully. I believe that that will be achieved in view of the safeguards contained in the Bill and in my noble friend's speech.
	The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about integrated transport. That is one of the matters on which I am very keen, and have been ever since Mr Prescott introduced it all those years ago, as it seems now. It is a good idea. As noble Lords know, I am chairman of the Rail Freight Group. A great deal of rail freight travels into and out of ports and there will be more in the future. As the noble Lord will also know, railway developments, or at least the small ones, use the Transport and Works Act procedure which works fairly well. Sometimes there is a public inquiry, sometimes there is not. It would be nice if the ports ended up with the same procedure as regards small developments.
	As my noble friend said, ports need to have sustainable development, but they are in competition with others. Traffic coming into all our ports is forecast to grow over the next decade—it may almost double. So there will be pressure for development and pressure on the environment. Therefore, there must be proper procedures for seeking permission for big and small developments so that those which should go ahead are not unduly frustrated and those which pose problems can be looked at carefully.
	The measure that we are discussing will help to create jobs. I hope that it will also help to make not just the port industry but the whole logistics chain from origin to destination a little more competitive.
	I certainly hope and ask noble Lords in closing that, if they have any influence in the other place, they might like to encourage their colleagues to consider this Bill with favour. This time, we have the benefit of a much longer Session before the next Prorogation, and we might just encourage the other place to look favourably on the Bill, assuming that your Lordships do here.
	On Question, Bill read a second time.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 11 October be approved.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the purpose of the order is to bring the substance ketamine under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. As is required by the Act, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has been consulted and agrees with the proposals. Ketamine is currently a prescription-only medicine and is controlled under the Medicines Act 1968. It is used primarily in veterinary medicine as an anaesthetic, but is also prescribed in hospitals as an analgesic to manage acute pain.
	Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic—it has hallucinogenic properties and can make the user feel detached from their body. It is mainly misused by clubbers taken in pill form, although it can also be injected or snorted. It is also known as "K" or "Special K" and is known to be taken in combination with cocaine. Taking ketamine presents certain risks to health which indicate that it should be a controlled drug. It can affect the memory and so may, if used over a prolonged period, have the potential to disrupt the personal and working life of users. There has been concern that ketamine may lead to psychotic relapse or precipitation of schizophrenia in people who have a tendency towards those particular types of disorders. Mixing ketamine and alcohol can be fatal. It also stimulates the cardiovascular system so that there is an immediate effect on the body of the user. There is an increase in heart rate, cardiac output and blood pressure, which makes it potentially dangerous to people with diseases of the cardiovascular system.
	During 2001–02, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs identified an emerging trend for large parcels of ketamine being imported into the UK from the subcontinent, concealed in solution in packages labelled "Rosewater". Although it is believed that most of the importations were carried out by opportunists rather than organised criminals, there is evidence to suggest that a minority of importers were wishing to exploit the law with regard to ketamine to make sufficient money to start dealing in other controlled drugs. Not all noble Lords may be aware that customs officers can take action against those importing medicines unlawfully only when the substance actually takes the form of a medicinal product. As the ketamine was in a solution it was not in a medicinal form and action could not be taken. Customs seized a substantial number of packages as they were in effect wrongly declared. These measures will allow customs officers to include ketamine on their list of controlled drugs and so be considerably more systematic in their enforcement policy.
	A dedicated ketamine committee was established by the Advisory Council, which took evidence from a wide range of experts. They produced a comprehensive report and in November 2004 the Advisory Council recommended that ketamine should be controlled as a class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The report is accessible from the Home Office website. In February, the then Drugs Minister, Caroline Flint, accepted in principle that ketamine should be a controlled drug, subject to views received in a public consultation that took place between March and June. The consultation was generally supportive of the measure.
	If the order is approved, we will lay before the House an amendment to the regulations, which will bring ketamine within the scope of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. The amended regulations will impose the regime of control over the drug. If the order is approved, Her Majesty's Government aim to bring it into effect, together with the relevant amendment regulation, on 1 January. Stricter controls on the drugs will be provided by the amendments, which are additional measures to restrict the general availability of the drugs.
	As a class C drug, the maximum penalty for the unauthorised manufacture, importation and supply of ketamine will be 14 years' imprisonment and/or a fine. The maximum sentence for the offence of possession of ketamine will be 2 years' imprisonment and a fine. Her Majesty's Government will publicise the law change with regard to ketamine through a Home Office notice, and through the "Talk to Frank" and drugs.gov.uk websites. Reference to the law change and health risks associated with ketamine will be included in future government materials for young people.
	These measures are very much in line with the Government's commitment to cause maximum disruption to drug markets and so protect young people, in particular, from the harm of being exposed to dangerous drugs. I commend the changes proposed in the order.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 11 October be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, this appears to be a perfectly straightforward case of a prescription-only medicine which has clearly been abused, and the Minister has told us that organised crime could be involved in its disguised import as rosewater. The ACMD has carried out a study and a detailed report, but can the Minister tell us more about the extent and nature of the public consultation which took place? Subject to that, we support the order.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the drug ketamine. There is ample evidence of its use by, and impact on, individuals. I often marvel at the ingenuity of drug users and those involved in the drug culture, who often seek new sources for their habits.
	Three matters should go hand in hand with this order and, to an extent, I subscribe to the idea that there is a need for a proper website to set out the implications. First, what kind of programme of public education will follow the order to ensure that youngsters are aware of the drug and its implications? Secondly, and more importantly, youngsters probably know more about drugs than their parents. Therefore, how can we implement an effective programme of education so that parents are aware of the signs if youngsters indulge in taking this class C drug?
	My third and most important point is that, as the Minister said, the drug is normally imported—I imagine from the Indian sub-continent—and classified as rosewater. We can close all doors in this country with regard to the importation and severity of punishment associated with these drugs. But what are we doing at the other end—in the countries from which the drugs are imported—so that the governments there understand the implications in this country of the importers' actions and of the exporters' actions at the other end? What kind of punishments and so on are available in those countries to ensure that communities remain safe not only at this end but at the other end as well? However, overall, I have no difficulty whatever in supporting the Government on this order.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am most grateful to both noble Lords for their support for the order. They both made useful points. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, asked about the consultation, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, raised the importance of education and working with other jurisdictions. I shall respond to both points.
	With regard to the matter raised by the noble Viscount, the consultation document was sent to approximately 100 trade organisations, medical bodies and other interested parties. As I said, the consultation was held between March and June this year. Of the 26 responses, all bar two supported the measure to bring ketamine under the Act. The Transform Drug Policy Foundation was opposed to the measure and, in a sense, its approach was consistent with its opposition to the prohibition of drugs. Transform, as an organisation, advocates a government-regulated drugs market, as the noble Viscount probably knows. The Government have firmly rejected that position on a number of occasions.
	The other organisation that opposed the measure was Release, on the grounds that it could lead to the further incrimination of young people. While one can understand that, it ignores ketamine's obvious potential for a damaging impact on young people, particularly when it is taken with other drugs. Obviously, we carefully consider representations made. We have absolutely no hesitation, however, in adding this to the controlled drugs list, and classifying it as recommended by the advisory committee.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, made perfectly sensible points about the importance of working to advise and educate people. We see that as an important element in our overall strategy. It is about a balance of enforcement, education, prevention and treatment. Since coming into office in 1997, the Government have invested considerable resources in enabling people to kick the habit and to understand the personal and social impact of drug taking. I am sure the noble Lord is well aware of the massively increased investment inside and outside of the criminal justice system to reach that objective. We are receiving plaudits for that, and are now beginning to see some clear evidence of the success of our overall drugs strategy.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, also made the important point that the Government need to work with other administrations to cut off the line of supply. I agree completely with him. We had intelligence, particularly from the Indian subcontinent, about the way in which this drug was being reprocessed so that it was able to come here in the form of rosewater. We know exactly from which part of the subcontinent the drug has been originating. That is why we have adopted this approach and decided to classify it as a class C drug to enable customs enforcement.
	I am grateful and delighted that we are going to have the support of your Lordships' House for the order.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Weights and Measures (Miscellaneous Foods) (Amendment) Order 2005

Lord McKenzie of Luton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 21 July be approved [4th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, this order is concerned with the rules on "specified quantities"; that is, with restrictions on the quantities in which certain foods may be packed. These restrictions are a long-standing aspect of consumer protection in the UK, and apply to many of the most commonly consumed foods, such as bread, milk, sugar, flour, tea and coffee.
	The order modifies the existing rules in two ways. First, it gives free entry into the UK market to packages which are legally marketed in another member state of the European Union, even if those do not conform to UK rules on specified quantities. Secondly, it removes all specified quantities from cocoa and chocolate products, so that they can be packed in any quantity.
	I should explain the reasoning for imposing any such restrictions. Their essential justification is to facilitate price comparisons by the consumer, so that they can make comparisons between different sizes or brands more easily. They still serve that purpose today. However, times and buying habits have changed since the current rules were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s, and the relative importance in the market of some of the products subject to these restrictions has declined. Other measures of consumer protection have come in, not least the requirements for unit prices to be indicated.
	I will have more to say about the broader context of change in relation to specified quantities generally, because it will become clear to your Lordships that the order before the House today is only an interim updating order, and that there are further changes in prospect. However, I should first explain the reasons behind the specific changes set out in the order, which are necessary to bring the UK rules into line with current European Community law and jurisprudence.
	In 2000, the European Court of Justice ruled, in case C-3/99, known as "Cidrerie Ruwet", that a member state must permit the import of packaged goods in a quantity not listed as a mandatory quantity, provided the quantity was lawfully manufactured and marketed in another member state. That represented a change in the previously accepted interpretation of the European rules on specified quantities.
	At European level, there are a small number of products for which mandatory specified quantities are imposed; for example, wines and spirits. However, there is a much longer list of products for which "optional" specified quantities are set out at European level. Packages made up in those quantities must be accorded free access to all EU markets. But member states, including the UK, had, until this European Court of Justice ruling, considered that it was permissible to make these specified quantities mandatory at national level, and on that basis to exclude imports which did not conform.
	As a result of the judgment, a change is needed to UK law to ensure that packages that are legally manufactured and marketed in another member state have free access to the UK market, even when they are not made up in our mandatory specified quantities. In practical terms, the change will have limited effect. Trading standards departments, which are responsible for enforcement, are already aware of the judgment and have changed their enforcement practice to reflect it. Nevertheless, it is appropriate that UK law should be amended to make it consistent with European jurisprudence.
	In itself, this is a technical change of no practical effect. But it gives us an opportunity to include a deregulatory measure—removing specified quantities for chocolate and cocoa products—which also derives from a change at European level, and which is of practical value and will be welcomed by the manufacturers and packers who are affected. The chocolate directive repealed the European level mandatory specified quantity for this product. Having consulted those affected, we propose to remove this specified quantity at this time and bring the UK rules into line with those in other member states. The amendment has the full support of representatives of the chocolate sector, who welcome the removal of specified quantities in this area and the resulting freeing up of the market.
	So much for the reasons for making the order. I should now like to say a little about the wider context of change which I mentioned a moment ago. Some of your Lordships may already be aware that the Department of Trade and Industry is currently in the process of a wide-ranging overhaul and updating of weights and measures legislation applying to packed goods and to foods. Late last year, the department published a public consultation which invited views on both quantity labelling and specified quantities for foods. The aim is to consolidate the numerous existing orders and to simplify and deregulate the existing rules. This aim has been generally welcomed, and many useful comments were made on the more detailed proposals then set out. We hope to progress in the fairly near future to consultations on a draft order, but we will first have to take account of further developments at the European level.
	In the light of the Cidrerie Ruwet judgment, and of the wider changes in the market and in consumer buying patterns which I mentioned earlier, the European Commission has meanwhile been reassessing the need for restrictions on specified quantities. It has brought forward a proposal for a new directive which would remove most mandatory specified quantities at European and national level. This proposal is currently before the European Parliament and European Council, and an explanatory memorandum has been submitted to the European Union Committee.
	However, it is worth mentioning today that the Commission's initiative affects the timing of our own work to update the specified quantities rules. Businesses were keen that whatever changes in EC law may result from the Commission's proposals should be incorporated into the changes we are making in the UK legislation. That is to say, they should have one wave of legislative changes instead of two. We agree that this is sensible. So the development of our proposals for updating the UK weights and measures legislation on food will depend on progress in Brussels and Luxembourg on the Commission's proposals. But subject to that, we hope to publish for consultation a draft order, taking account of the forthcoming changes to European law, in the course of next year.
	Your Lordships might reasonably wonder why it is necessary to make the order before the House today, since the content could easily be included within the wider changes we are planning. There are, however, two reasons for making this interim updating order now. First, it is of course appropriate and indeed necessary to amend our legislation to bring it into line with EC law and jurisprudence.
	Secondly, the removal of restrictions on chocolate products is a useful piece of deregulation which will be welcomed by UK manufacturers and packers in that sector. These gains would be delayed for a year or perhaps more, because we do not know at this stage when it may be possible to secure agreement on the Commission's proposal for a new directive. So we think that the right thing to do is to go ahead with these relatively modest changes now.
	I hope that I have succeeded in persuading noble Lords that the order before you is necessary and appropriate to reflect changes in law and jurisprudence at European level and I hope it will engage your support. I commend the order to the House, and beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft Order laid before the House on 21 July be approved [4th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McKenzie of Luton.)

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the order so clearly, especially as he seems to be losing his voice, and I commiserate with him.
	While the order cannot under any measure be described as hugely important, it is nevertheless required, although I notice in the final regulatory impact assessment that the order will have little practical effect. Trading Standards has already been issued with guidance to permit the placing on the market of imports from other member states in any pack size. I also note in passing that it appears to have taken five years from the date of the relevant European Court of Justice decision in 2000 to get to this point, which might imply that it has not until now been considered necessary or even important. Nevertheless, it is important and perhaps encouraging to find the European Court of Justice using its powers to overrule EU law in favour of free markets.
	As the Explanatory Memorandum sets out, there are perhaps a couple of issues of concern. We would be grateful for the Government's explanation about how they propose to deal with them. The first is that, as the Explanatory Memorandum says, the purpose of legislation on package sizes is generally to make it easier for the consumer to make price comparisons. Without standard package sizes, therefore, and acknowledging the imperative to comply with the ECJ decision, do the Government consider that consumers are adequately protected in that regard? Will the Minister give us his assessment of the types of food the Government expect to be most affected by these changes? Can he indicate the likely impact on the sale of those products in this country?
	Secondly, the Explanatory Memorandum explains that fixed package sizes may also offset disproportionate buyer pressure from large purchasers, such as supermarkets, on small and medium-sized enterprises involved in packaging. They might incur excessive costs if package sizes are not restricted and have, of course in certain cases, already spent substantial time and money tooling up for the standard package sizes. Again it would be helpful to know whether the Government been able to think of ways other than standard package sizes to protect some of our smaller suppliers who, as we know, are already under considerable trading disadvantage when dealing with the bigger purchasers. I think your Lordships will want assurances that there will be no adverse impact on UK food producers and their status within the marketplace. I should be grateful for any reassurance the Minister can give your Lordships in that respect.
	It would also be helpful if the Minister could indicate the likely impact the order will have on British food exports to other EU member states. I am sure the Government have carefully considered these points, among others, and I look forward to finding out. Failure to make these regulatory changes would risk the UK being in breach of our European obligations. So on those grounds we cannot and do not dispute the order.

Lord Addington: My Lords, this is one of those odd ones. I would not say that it was gold-plating—although it might be tattily gilding—an order from Europe. That is what it comes down to. It is of no great moment when all is said and done. The fact that we can buy chocolate in non-regulation sizes may cause a minor flurry at Christmas, but I cannot see it affecting anybody else. It might be slightly more interesting if we discovered that it was something to do with anti-obesity legislation. But I do not think that it has anything to do with that; it is merely a legal catch-up.
	It leaves an apparent short-term anomaly that you can import stuff in non-standard sizes from the rest of Europe, although we can only sell it ourselves. Really, I think that this is an interesting example of how we can get ourselves into small knots over European legislation. I look forward to the Government clarifying the whole thing at the first available opportunity. I think the noble Lord said that in a year we can expect to see greater clarification on removing the standardisation of sizes. I hope that that will occur and that good labelling will take the place of the prescription of the standard size you can buy things in. With today's market, surely that would be more logical.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and their support for the order and for not asking too many exacting questions to make me croak for too long. To respond first to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, this is very much not gold-plating; it is simply carrying through requirements of EU law as decided. It is something that we must do; it is certainly not going further than we need to. As I tried to explain, it is in advance of a much wider deregulation under way both domestically and in Europe and is a step along the way to that.
	The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asked whether consumers will be protected. Other consumer protection measures are in place—for example, requirements for unit pricing, which applies more widely than specified quantities. The impact on imports and exports is not expected to be large. Most manufacturers throughout the EU keep to the common sizes permitted in any case. Therefore, we do not believe that the order will have an adverse effect on consumers; we think that it will be broadly welcomed.
	I hope that I have dealt with the points raised, but if there are any further ones, I shall be happy to write to noble Lords. On that basis, I commend the order to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Community (Definition of Treaties) (WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty) Order 2005

Lord McKenzie of Luton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 13 October be approved.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, the order declares the World Intellectual Property Organisation Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both signed by the UK on 13 February 1997, to be regarded as Community treaties as defined in Section 1(2) of the European Communities Act. The effect of declaring those treaties as Community treaties is that the provision of the European Communities Act will apply to them. That will enable the Government to exercise powers under Section 2(2) of the Act to make subordinate legislation to give effect to the treaties. Having done so, the UK and, ultimately, our European partners will be able to ratify the treaties.
	These important treaties update and strengthen international standards of protection for literary and artistic works, for sound recordings and, in relation to the rights of certain performing artists, especially to take account of digital technology. Consequently, they have become known as the Internet treaties. The treaties confirm that the traditional right of reproduction continues to apply in a digital environment and that owners of rights can control whether and how their creations are made available online. They also allow countries reasonable flexibility in establishing exceptions or limitations to rights in the digital environment. Where the treaties break new ground is by requiring countries to provide protection against the circumvention of technological protection measures for rights, such as encryption on the Internet, and to provide remedies against the removal or alteration of electronic rights management information—that is, information that identifies the work, its creator, performer or owner and the terms and conditions for its use.
	Other matters dealt with by the treaties include rights of distribution and rental; the right to receive payment for certain forms of broadcasting all communication to the public; and an obligation on countries to provide adequate and effective measures allowing rights holders to enforce their rights against infringements.
	The treaties were published as Command Papers Nos. 3728 and 3736 in 1997. Most of their requirements were already established in UK law when the UK signed the treaties in 1997. Further requirements were met when the UK implemented Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and the Council on 22 May 2001 on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society. That implementation came with the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, which came into force on 31 October 2003.
	That left just one substantive aspect of the treaties requiring implementation in the UK; namely, moral rights for performers. Unlike copyright, or most related rights, moral rights protect reputation and are not economic rights to be sold or traded. The treaties introduce two rights for performers: the right to claim identification in relation to a performance and the right to object to modification or distortion of a performance that would be prejudicial to the performer's reputation. Authors have enjoyed similar rights for quite some time.
	Noble Lords should note that this statutory instrument does not introduce those moral rights but rather it paves the way for their introduction. As I have mentioned, by designating these Internet treaties as Community treaties, the Government may use European Communities Act powers to make subordinate legislation to give effect to the treaties. In that way the moral rights will be introduced for performers. A draft of a further statutory instrument was made available to the House at the same time as this instrument was laid. That further instrument will be subject to a negative resolution procedure.
	In Council Decision 2000/278/EC the treaties have been approved on behalf of the European Community, which will in due course ratify them. That will require ratification by all European Community member states. It is intended that all member states ratify the treaties together, although some of the new accession states had already ratified them before accession.
	Declaring the Internet treaties as Community treaties would allow the UK to complete the latest step in bringing our laws into line with widely recognised international norms for the protection of copyright and related rights. I am pleased to commend the draft order to the House. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 13 October be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McKenzie of Luton.)

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for battling on and explaining the order.
	I understand from the Explanatory Notes that the two treaties in question update and strengthen international standards for the protection of literary and artistic works and sound recordings, and the rights of recording artists, in particular, to take account of digital technology. I further understand that the order, among other things, effectively extends to performers similar rights to those already enjoyed by holders of copyright. Although the regulations assist and enhance the rights of performers, they do not take account of the disparity that arises as a result of the term of protection upon which these moral rights are based.
	Longstanding artists such as Cliff Richard have very publicly campaigned that they believe that the duration of rights in their performances is too short. For example, performers' rights and rights in sound recordings from a performance in 1956 will expire next year. Those sound recordings and performances would then be available for manipulation in ways that may offend the artist or be prejudicial to his interests.
	Although the new regulations would enable Cliff Richard to prevent derogatory use of his performances during the 50-year period, they would not prevent it after that time had expired. There is a distinct imbalance in that primary rights holders are treated more favourably. Under the current CDPA, primary rights holders benefit from a long period of copyright protection, which in turn dictates a long period of protection against derogatory use of their works under their moral rights. It is suggested that the people who really need the benefit of that provision are the performers who will still be alive to see their performances and sound recordings treated in a manner of which they do not approve. The basic problem is the link between the moral right and the term of the underlying right—50 years for performers and, I think, 70 years for primary copyright holders.
	Section 205(1) could be amended to increase the period during which the performer can enforce his moral rights—to the life of the performer, for example—to prevent derogatory treatment of the performance during the performer's lifetime. As a subsidiary point, it is notable that the provisions take effect only from the coming into force of the regulations. What about the vast catalogues of pre-existing works, which can be manipulated digitally and potentially prejudicially to the honour or reputation of the performer?
	I hope that the Minister's voice will hold out to allow him to respond to those matters, and I look forward to that response. However, given that the order would not be considered by many of us as one of the most controversial, we do not propose to stand in the way of it.

Lord Addington: My Lords, we have no objection to the order.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their support for the order.
	Questions were posed about differences in treatment and length of copyright rights. I hope that I will have some comfort to give on that. The term of protection is established in UK law in a directive. The UK and the EU are considering calls to extend the term for the likes of Mr Richard. We have yet to reach a conclusion on that. On the general point, I would say that the order is just a paving mechanism. It does nothing of itself on moral rights; it just opens up the opportunity for the final order that will enable those to come through secondary legislation.
	I hope that that has dealt sufficiently with the point that was raised. On that basis, I commend the order to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at ten minutes past five o'clock.